


make damn sure

by becausemagnets



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Drug Use, F/M, M/M, Underage Drinking, shitty parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:03:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 48,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2746988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becausemagnets/pseuds/becausemagnets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Graduation is impending and no one handles it well. Kisses on a pool deck, drugs in a claw foot bathtub, lots of drinking and fighting and making up again, hangover cures involving bacon, all of it very bad. Very, very bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	make damn sure

**Author's Note:**

> this is pretty much an Avengers version of _Skins_. no apologies.

****

Act I

**Steve**

They’re sitting too close together, crammed into Clint’s backseat. He can feel the heat coming off of Bucky’s body, pressed thigh to thigh, and occasionally his back would brush against Steve’s arm. It goes through him almost like an electric jolt. His face is burning hot and he does his best to shrink against the door, wishing (not for the first time) that he could just disappear off of the face of the planet. Bucky’s shirt is riding up his back, Natasha’s nails digging a nice line down the exposed skin, and Steve catches Clint’s eyes in the rearview mirror. At least he isn’t the only one, then. Clint looks like he’s watching a rainstorm.

Bruce vaguely hands the flask around the seat and Steve reaches quickly over Bucky’s thigh to grab it. He takes a long swig, hoping to quench the fire that's starting in the pit of his stomach. It’s all culminating--the proximity and the late August heat and that Clint’s air conditioner has been broken for the better part of the summer and that the only time he ever sees Bucky anymore, his face was firmly attached to Natasha’s. Complete with the smacking sounds and moaning. Clint’s car isn’t that big--a cheap, compact little Malibu that he bought nearly four years ago now--and Bucky is practically sitting in Steve’s lap, squirming to get a better position to press his face closer to Natasha’s. Maybe if Steve got drunk enough, it wouldn’t even matter.

Maybe.

He presses the flask into the small of Bucky’s back, clears his throat. No response. “Hey, you two coming up for air soon?” Clint laughs from the front seat, catching Steve’s eyes in the rearview again to give him a small, sad smile. “Or for alcohol?”

“Oh, sorry.” Bucky wipes at his mouth, smearing red lipstick on the heel of his hand. He smiles fondly at Steve and takes the flask out of his hand, their fingers brushing. Steve thought he’d drank enough already to stop the electric feeling crawling up and down his spine, but apparently not. Instead, the alcohol has pooled in his stomach like a mini furnace, bursting into full flame anytime Bucky even so much as turns his eyes toward him.

Bucky takes a few quick swallows and tries to pass the flask to Natasha, but she waves it off, pulling Bucky down by his collar so she can taste the whiskey secondhand. Clint tries to take a swig, but Bruce snatches it out of his hand fast enough for most of it to end up spilling out of Clint’s mouth and drip down his chin.

“Have you ever been to Kate’s?” Bruce asks as Clint wipes furiously at his face, turning around in his seat, his jacket making a crunching sound against the fake leather of the front seat. The question is probably directed at the entire backseat, but as Bucky and Natasha’s mouths are otherwise occupied, Steve answers.

“No. Clint told me how huge it is, though. Are her parents…?” He trails off, lifting his eyebrows at Clint as they lock eyes again.

“Cabo. Her parents are in Cabo.” Clint spits out the whiskey that’s managed to make it in his mouth. “They left her some ninety year old nanny, but Kate says the zombie apocalypse couldn’t wake her up. And, at this point, honestly, I don’t think her parents will even be surprised. Her dad like sells liquor or something. Liquor stocks? Anyway. They’ve had to notice a discrepancy in product, but they haven’t said anything about it to Kate so far.” He pats Bruce companionably on the shoulder, grinning wide at Steve in the rearview. “Last time we were over there, Bruce got so drunk, he broke all of the pool furniture and threw it into the neighbors yard and we had a good ol’ race with the cops. Good night.”

“For you, maybe.” Bruce takes a deep swig off the flask and hands it back to Steve, beating a hand against his chest and shaking his head. Steve downs what’s left in one big gulp, the whiskey burning all the way down to his stomach.

“Whoa, easy there, tiger. You tryin’ to pass out on us already?” Bucky pats him on the back, hard, and Steve feels like he could cough it all right back up. Bucky’s hand on his back is hot enough to be a branding iron, hotter than the alcohol charring up his throat. He shrugs out of Bucky’s touch and pointedly looks out the window and not at Bucky. Bucky leans against him, their arms sticking together where the bare skin touches.

“Hey, what’s the matter? Not in the partying mood?” Steve shrugs, feeling a little rush of the whiskey to his head. The streetlights are blurring, too bright for his eyes. He leans his head against the window and shuts his eyes.

“He’ll be all right when you two get out of the car and into the bedroom.” Clint smiles at him again in the rearview mirror and Steve feels guilty for being the one to act like the jilted lover. If it was hard to watch Bucky, he couldn’t imagine what it was like for Clint to watch Natasha. It was one thing to know that they were--intimate. It was another thing to have it thrown repeatedly in your face.

Kate’s house is not, in fact, a house. It’s a mansion. Clint parks on the lawn and Steve feels like they’re piling out of a clown car, and absurdly, like he’s underdressed. He smoothes his collar down against his neck and tries to get the creases out of his pants, but it’s too hot and his pants are sticking to his legs. Bucky wraps his arm around Natasha’s waist and they walk ahead as Bruce, Clint, and Steve follow in a staggered formation. The whiskey is getting to Steve faster than he expected and the lawn feels like it’s moving under his feet, rising up with every single step like he’s climbing an incline. Clint falls back, not reaching out to him or anything, but hanging by just to make sure he makes it in all right.

“It’s hard on you, huh?” It’s more of a rhetorical question, but Steve nods anyway. “Well, let’s just get drunk and do our best to forget about it.”

“Solid plan.”

The party is already in full swing. Bucky and Natasha get lost pretty fast, and Clint and Steve exchange a glance. Steve heads straight toward the keg, his mouth feeling dry and the rest of him feeling hollow. He scans the crowd for Tony or Thor, or hell, even Loki, but he doesn’t see any face he recognizes, so he hangs out by the keg, nodding at anyone who looks in his direction. It’s not that he’s a wallflower, it’s just that he doesn’t know even half of the people there. Kate Bishop is a freshman, or will be when school starts next week, and most of the people she’s invited just don’t run in the same circles as Steve. He knows some of the guys on the football team, but that’s only because of Bucky and Thor. He sees Sam Wilson talking to a blond girl in the corner, maybe Bobbi or Carol, and he tries to get his attention, wave, but thinks better of it after a few attempts.

Tony sneaks up on him, not a feat considering he’d been thinking what it would be like to walk into a party with Bucky’s hand around his waist and not the fact that he’s blocking the keg.

“Where are the love birds, then?” Steve throws his hands up, sloshing beer on the carpet. Tony laughs at him, claps him on the back causing another slosh. Steve downs the rest of his beer before anymore of it can spill. Tony’s laugh is so bright and easy, like it’s always bubbling up under the surface, as if nothing is heavy enough to touch him. Steve envies that more than he can ever say. Everything feels heavy to him--every decision, every word, every feeling resting on his chest like a two ton weight. He’d like to at least laugh like everything is easy. “You pregame?”

“Bruce and Clint bought some Fireball.” Steve fills up a new cup for Tony, skimming a bit of the froth off for himself before handing it over and filling up his own empty cup. “I’m just waiting for it to really kick in.”

“How much you weigh now? Ninety pounds? It’ll kick in.” Tony laughs as Steve punches him in the stomach, mock doubling over without spilling a single drop of beer. “Wanna down that really fast and dance or are we not drunk enough for that yet?” Steve sips off the foam and eyes Tony over his beer, raising an eyebrow. “Not drunk enough, then. Well, you know where to find me when the Fireball does kick in.”

Tony practically dissolves into the crowd, but Steve can see him catch Bruce on the dance floor. They hug and then they’re dancing and Steve’s back to leaning against the keg, reminiscing about what parties used to be like before Bucky got with Natasha. His drunk weight against Steve’s body. His wet lips too close to Steve’s ear as he’d lean in to be heard over the shitty playlists. His hand firm on the small of Steve’s back, steering him around the room, inviting him into every conversation he was having. His arms heavy around Steve’s shoulder as they danced until they were both covered in sweat.

He probably should have danced with Tony to wash Bucky out of his mouth.

The beer does it just fine. He probably downs half the keg by himself. Sam comes over and talks to him for a while, but he barely remembers anything they said to each other. Probably something glib about Bucky and Natasha that he’s going to regret in the morning or something entirely too frank about what he thinks about Sam’s friendship that he is also going to regret in the morning. He ends up going out to the pool deck, partially because he thinks he’s going to throw up and partially because his skin feels hot and clammy all over and he hopes that fresh air will help. He hasn’t seen Bucky and Natasha at all since they walked in and imagining what they’re up to is making his stomach churn stronger than the alcohol.

Clint is sitting on one of the pool chairs, smoking a joint. He pats the empty chair next to him, waving the joint in the air between his fingers, and Steve sinks down next to him and nearly burns the tips of his fingers taking the joint from him. Clint’s eyelids are low and he’s looking up at the stars like he can count them all from where he’s sitting. Steve’s limbs feel heavy as he pushes the smoke out of his nose, his throat burning and raw. “Pretty good party,” he coughs, passing the joint back to Clint. Clint waves him off, miming that Steve should finish it.

“If it’s such a good party, what are you doing out here with me?” Clint asks, astutely, still watching the sky like he expects it to change.

“You’re not having fun?” Clint turns his head, skeptical, and Steve coughs out everything he was supposed to be inhaling, cough dissolving into a laugh and back into a cough again. Clint waits for him to finish. “Stupid question. You’re still--with her--then?”

“I mean, I don’t know. I think I’ll always ‘still with her’, you know?” Steve nods, trying to appear sage, taking a short drag so he can actually hold something in his lungs, but he doesn’t know, not really. “It’s just doing my head in, is all. I was hoping that coming out, seeing the gang, hanging at Kate’s house would make it all sort of fade around the edges, but I think it just magnified all the bad stuff that’s going on.” Clint kicks off his shoes and settles back in the chair, but he still has his head turned towards Steve. Watching him the same way he’d been watching the sky. “You know it’s bad when you’re actually ready to go back to school.” Steve stubs the roach out on the glass table top next to him. The weed has taken away the nausea, softened the edge of his intoxication. He feels it settle in his bones, as heavy and warm as the summer air. “So is it just him or… guys?”

Steve’s mouth is suddenly very dry. He looks around for his cup, doesn’t find it. Clint hands him an open bottle of Jack Daniels, a terrible thirst quencher, but he takes a quick swallow anyway, swirls it around in his mouth. It tastes like ash. “It’s, uh, it’s not just him. I mean, he’s the one that I--but it’s not just him.”

Clint’s lips turn up just slightly and he’s back to looking at the sky. “Good to know.”

“Why? You trying to fix me up or something?” Steve takes another swig of the Jack before handing it back to Clint. Clint takes a longer one. Steve watches his Adam’s apple bob up and down and his mouth is dry again. He doesn’t reach for the bottle when Clint puts it on the table, though.

“Or something.” It’s barely more than a whisper and there’s something rough in Clint’s voice, something that Steve can’t place. He feels like reaching absurdly between them, putting his hand on Clint’s chest to reassure him that they’re both still real. That whatever is happening between them is still real.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks instead, feeling kind of breathless.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, boy wonder. I’m just being maudlin.”

“I am too drunk for that word right now,” Steve laughs, scrubbing a hand down his face. Clint turns again to smile fondly at him, one of the few smiles they’ve shared that night that actually manages to reach his eyes. “Why’d you want to know, though? Seriously. I’ve been in love with Bucky for like ten years now, why you asking me all of the sudden?”

“Wanted to know if you’d be adverse to this.” It’s like it’s happening in slow motion or to somebody else. Clint rises, slowly, and it’s like Steve can see every muscle, bone, joint that he’s using. He’s hovering near Steve, near enough that Steve can smell the weed and his laundry detergent, and Steve feels like he’s cemented in place, like if he moves he’s going to break everything apart. Clint’s hands are big on his cheeks, warm, and his thumbs are rubbing the underside of Steve’s jaw, begging him to lift his head, and then there’s the warm heat of Clint’s lips against his, gentle but insistent and Steve’s mouth opens of it’s own accord and he fists up the front of Clint’s shirt, feeling like he’s just been thrown overboard without a life raft.

Clint pulls back, his lips and his eyes shiny, and he runs a hand through his hair, making it stand up in every direction, and his cheeks are flushed and he’s not making eye contact. “Was that--okay?”

“I--yeah.” Steve’s eyes catch on Clint’s rucked collar, the line of his neck and the bit of exposed collarbone. Steve turned sixteen years old more than a month ago and he’s never kissed anyone. He’d gotten close a couple of times (Peggy Carter was an incredibly patient and kind girl), but he’d never actually done it. Although, technically, Clint kissed him, but it still counts.

“Want--should we do it again? Maybe some tongue this time?”

Steve opens his legs and pulls Clint down on top of him, the chair creaking under their combined weight. Clint’s face hovers around his, noses brushing, and Steve tries to crane up, catch his lips, but Clint pulls back, laughing lightly. His breath is warm, maddening, against Steve’s face, and it all still feels like it’s happening to someone else, somewhere far away from Kate Bishop’s pool deck. “You ever been kissed before, Rogers?”

“Shut up.”

Clint’s sucking on his tongue and Steve’s got his hands, firm, on Clint’s waist. He tastes the Jack and the weed and it’s all going straight to his head, making it swim, and then there’s Clint’s teeth on his bottom lip and Clint’s hands crawling up under his shirt, his fingers barely brushing against Steve’s skin. Goosebumps rise up all over him.

“You like that, huh?” Clint’s lips brush against Steve’s cheeks, his earlobe, down his throat. Steve doesn’t say anything, he just gets one of his hands up in Clint’s hair and tugs his head back up towards his mouth. He feels warm all over, like all the heat that pooled in his stomach over the course of the night, getting him this charged up, is spreading fast, liquid fire.

Steve lets his mouth stray , leaving a wet trail down Clint’s neck until he fixes his mouth in the divot between Clint’s collarbones, working his teeth enough to leave a light mark. Clint tightens his fingers on Steve’s stomach, snakes one of his hands up into Steve’s hair. “You’re a quick learner, boy wonder. Should have tried this a while ago.”

Clint wraps his arms around Steve and attempts to lift him bodily, but Steve flails, knocks them both backwards and the Jack Daniels off the table. He lands flat and hard on the tile and Clint catches the bottle before it spills too much, licking the excess liquor off of his fingers.

“What the fuck were you trying to do?” There’s a mark on Clint’s chest where Steve’s mouth had been. It makes something dark stir in the pit of his stomach, but he tries hard to shake it off. Clint’s lips are so pink, wet, shining, and Steve wants to cover that mouth so badly. He crawls across the pool deck and does just that, sending both of them backwards again.

Clint breaks the kiss off, breathing hard. He’s got his hands hooked on the waistband of Steve’s jeans and Steve shifts against Clint’s waist and--oh. Clint’s cupping him through his jeans, his pupils blown wide, and Steve’s whole chest feels tight. “I’m not--Clint, I’m--”

“I know, I can feel.” His hand is warm, even through the jeans, and Steve scrambles back, his face hot. He knows he must be blushing all over. Even his ears feel hot. “Steve, it’s okay, if you don’t-- I mean, I just assumed. We can just keep making out if you want.” Clint starts crawling toward him, his pants wet from the spilled whiskey. Steve puts a hand up, resting his head against the pool chair behind him. Clint sits back on his heels, scrubbing a hand through his hair again. “Look, Steve, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just, you know. I was into it, you were into it, everybody was into it. I know a stop sign when I see one, man, it’s fine.”

“I think this was a bad idea,” Steve says, finally, his mouth feeling like it’s full of cotton, overused. He feels like he got slammed back into his own skin all at once and he’s clammy all over, feeling drunker and sadder and so much older than he’s supposed to.

“I’m kind of known for them, actually.” Clint crawls closer to him, reaches out to put his hand on Steve’s thigh, but thinks better of it and keeps his hands to himself. Steve lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “But for what it's worth, I don’t think it was a bad idea. I think it was a pretty good one.”

**Tony**

He has no intention of getting this drunk, but he can feel the weight of impending graduation and major life decisions he doesn’t want to make already. They aren’t in school for another week, but it’s hanging over his head like a giant, future sized storm cloud. He’s already _teaching_ online courses at MIT, having received an honorary bachelor’s degree for completely restructuring every piece of major technology in their engineering department when he was fifteen years old, but the prospect of actually graduating--having to leave high school and the comfort of all its banal pleasures behind--is so overwhelming, he gets a little drunk. Okay, more than a little. 

Kate’s living room, now turned into a mass of writhing bodies, is crowded and hot and going straight to his head. He tries to catch Steve’s eyes over the crowd, make him regret playing pretty waifish wallflower, but he can’t even see him over the bobbing heads. He tries to yell his name, but it gets quickly swallowed in the music and the voices and the chaos. Who knew a freshman could throw such a good party? He catches a flash of red hair between the bodies, follows, hoping for Natasha, but he loses the hair just as quickly as he found it and then there’s a hand on the small of his back, a calm, insistent pressure.

 _Bruce_. He turns on his heel quickly and throws his arms across Bruce’s shoulders, squeezing him tight to his chest. “Bruce,” he breathes into his ear, both for proximity and so he can actually be heard. “I thought you weren’t coming. College man, and all that.”

“And miss you being this spectacularly drunk before ten?” His hands are on Tony’s waist now, but he’s smiling, wide and unapologetic. “Never.”

“I am not spectacularly drunk, I’m phenomenally buzzed, there’s a _huge_ difference.”

“Hmm.” Bruce presses his forehead against Tony’s, his breath warm on Tony’s cheeks, his smile infectious. Tony feels it in every part of himself. “Is there? What’s the difference?”

“Let’s dance.” Tony creates a space between their bodies, but Bruce’s hands on his hips snap them back together. Tony throws his head back and laughs, head swimming, most of his weight across Bruce’s shoulders. They find a rhythm easy enough, Bruce’s hands straying to the small of Tony’s back, inching lower and lower as Tony’s body drops lower and lower. Tony fists his hands up in Bruce’s hair, both for leverage as he slots his hips repeatedly against Bruce’s and so he can draw a sharp hiss out of Bruce. Bruce is wearing contacts, a shame, but his eyes are bright and sharp and going right through Tony. The sweat on his body starts feeling cold and it’s almost like there’s no one else in the whole world until he feels fake nails between his shoulders.

“Get a room, you two.” He can feel her smirk without even looking at her. “May I cut in, Tony?” Tony graciously untangles his fingers from Bruce’s curls, the weight of all the alcohol hitting him all at once. Natasha puts Bruce’s hands on her hips and smiles, glibly, over her shoulder at Tony, tossing her hair. Tony shoves his hands in his pockets, scans the room for his next victim. Maybe Clint will be high enough to dance. That’s always a trip.

“Where’s your latest boy toy, Natasha? I thought you guys were attached at the tongue,” he yells vaguely in her direction. No sign of Clint. He sees Thor and Jane talking animatedly over in the corner and Rhodey and Pepper are dancing like they’re going to prom. Steve has also left his place at the keg, leaving Tony feeling particularly thrown to the wolves. He knows what Natasha is doing and it’s probably a necessary evil considering the level of his intoxication and the ramifications of his intoxicated behavior, but it feels overwhelmingly and personally unfair.

“James is in the kitchen doing shots. We’re quite progressive, actually. Spend entire hours apart and everything.” Bruce twirls Natasha around, laughing.

“ _James_. Why can’t you just call him Bucky like the rest of us? His name is Bucky.” Tony crosses his arms over his chest and tries to catch Bruce’s eye conspiratorially, but he seems just as self-satisfied and smug as Natasha. He hovers near them for a little bit before finally giving up and heading to the kitchen to see if he can’t get a least one shot before _James_ and the rest of the football team down them. He stumbles up the step between the landing and the hallway to the kitchen and catches himself on… someone.

Slight of frame, long black hair hanging in his eyes, and a quick snarl as he pushes Tony off of him. “Hey, man, sorry, I’m--drunker, I think, than I thought. I mean, I’m drunker than I meant to be. Drunker than I thought I was when I tried to walk and get more alcohol. Drunker. Anyway, hey, sorry--oh hey, aren’t you Thor’s brother?”

He can tell that’s not the right thing to say. Thor’s brother, a freshman (god what’s his name, Stark? What’s his _naaaaame_?), crosses his arms over his chest and glowers. His eyes are kind of overwhelmingly cruel blue and Tony has never felt so much like he’s on uneven footing. It doesn’t happen very often.

“Loki? Right? That’s your name? Tony. Tony Stark. I’m a friend of your brother’s.” He holds out a hand. Loki stares at it with purer disdain than anything he’s ever seen, even Natasha’s red hot disapproval. He shoves his hand, uselessly, back in his pocket. This is not going well. Usually these types of things go well for him (usually every type of thing goes well for him). “You a friend of Kate’s then?”

“Not exactly.” Tony barely resists the urge to break out in a face wide grin, his lips twitching up. He finally got a response.

“Ah, here for the beer and the silent judging, is that it?” Loki’s lips twitch and his eyes betray him for a second, flashing softer than the walls he’s put up, but then they’re back to cold and hard as a stone. A very alive, flashing stone, but still unreadable. Uncrackable. “Well, I seem to have provided you plenty of silent judging material, what about a beer?” Loki raises one eyebrow, but it doesn’t really indicate whether that’s a yes or a no. “I mean, for you. Not for me. I probably don’t need another beer, you’re right.” He throws his hands up in mock surrender and does his best to flash a winning smile. Pulling out all the stops. “So what do you say? Beer?”

“What about something a little _harder_?” Loki’s smiling, but it’s not exactly a smile so much as a promise that he could eat Tony alive if he wanted to. Tony’s stomach drops, flips, slams back down, reminding him again that he’s drunker than he’s pretending to be and that he’s full of lots of very, very bad ideas. His brain is dragging, slow, wading through the molasses that is Loki’s emphasis on harder, the way his lips had shaped the word. Not a good sign, not a good sign at all.

“You mean like pot? I haven’t got any, but Clint, Clint Barton, he’s a friend of mine, might--”

Loki shows him a little vial, waves it under his nose. Indistinct white powder in a vial, grasped between thin, long, delicate fingers that he should not be staring at. “Just a little bump. It’ll be fun.” Loki’s eyes are soft again, inviting almost, and he’s still smiling like a shark. Fun, right.

Tony sits in the clawfoot bathtub, his legs thrown over the edge, while Loki holds the little vial under his nostril. “Breathe it in. It’ll go straight up. Stings a bit. Makes the bridge of your nose feel like it’s going to fall out for a good five or ten minutes, but then you’ll be feeling no pain.”

“Pinky swear?” Tony’s nervous. Tony is very rarely nervous, but this feels harder. Harder was the right word.

“Scout’s honor.” Soft eyes, wide shark smile.

“You were not a boy scout.” Tony breathes in and his entire body feels like it’s on fire, all the way down to the tips of his toes. A bright, white burning fire, and when he closes his eyes, all he sees are Loki’s eyes, crinkling at the corners as he scrubs a hand over Tony’s head, laughing.

**Clint**

Silk sheets. Silk purple sheets. He rubs his face against them for a second, running his hand down his bare stomach. He’s warm and happy and safe and it kind of smells like lavender and he thinks he might go ahead and fall back asleep, but--fuck.

He bolts up. Kate’s bed. He’s in Kate’s bed. He’s wearing nothing but his boxer shorts in Kate’s bed. He reaches up to his ear, but no hearing aids. His head feels heavy and his eyes are dry and tired and his breath smells like something crawled down his throat and died last night. And he has a vagueish memory of trying to have sex with Steve. Typical.

He scrambles up and out of bed and starts trying to discreetly find his clothes and his hearing aids and peace out before he has to face whatever happened to get him practically naked in Kate’s bed. He nearly jumps out of his skin when Kate touches his bare shoulder, his pants in her hands. He signs “thanks” at her quickly and puts them on and before he can sign “shirt?” at her, she’s got it in her hands. He pulls it over his head, feeling sheepish. He can feel his cheeks burning under her scrutiny. And who gave her the right to wear purple short shorts to bed? “Hearing aids?” She signs “under the bed” at him and Clint practically crawls under to get them. He feels more grounded when he hears the annoying piercing sound of them turning on and can hear his own heavy breathing. So much for a clean get away.

“So I, uh, don’t know what happened last night.” He puts a hand on the back of his neck and smiles nervously at Kate, hoping he’s coming off at least a little bit cavalier, but he can tell by the way she crosses her arms over her chest he’s probably not. Probably not at all.

“Figures. You were seriously drunk. Tony and Thor carried you up here when you started crying.” She grins wide at him and Clint nods. Crying. Of course.

“Did they…? With the clothes or…?”

“No, you appear to have done that yourself.”

“Anything else happen I should know about?”

“Did you want anything else to happen?”

Fourteen year old girls should not be this powerful. “Do you know where my phone is?”

She hands it to him. There’s a text from Tony, Thor, Natasha, Bruce, Kate herself actually, but no Steve. Of course no Steve. He shoots him a quick text, his best attempt at an apology, and doesn’t bother replying to the rest. He wasn’t all that drunk when Steve joined him by the pool. He can pretty much remember that in amazing technicolor detail. Good thing he’s wearing pants now.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Her hands on her hips now. Probably would have been more commanding if she wasn’t wearing a penguin tank top and the back of her hair wasn’t a complete rat’s nest. Still pretty commanding, though. He does his best to ignore the fact that her legs look extra long and tan and smooth in those purple short shorts. Jogging shorts. Not bed shorts. Or, well, not sleeping shorts.

“I did not want anything else to happen. I’m still trying to sort through enough of what actually happened that I don’t really have the energy to make great leaps into imagined territory here. Just tell me I didn’t make too big of an ass of myself and we’ll just move on and pretend it never happened like we always do.” Clint sits back down on her bed, his head feeling ten times too heavy for his neck. He cradles it between his hands, but signs for Kate to continue. If he’s going to get reamed for his behavior, he’d rather hear it from Kate.

“Uh, I don’t think so. We pretty much cleaned you up before you made too much of a mess, I think. When you were dancing with Natasha, she slapped you, but Thor assured me that’s nothing unusual.” Clint shrugs. It’s not. So far so good. “Steve left after he was hanging out with you by the pool. Well, he threw up in the bathtub, and left. Bucky took him home.” Okay, not so good, but not entirely his fault. “Um, you started crying when you’d realized that he left and I set you down in the study, hoping being away from the party would calm you down, but you were crying kind of a lot, so I went and got Tony and Thor and they put you to bed and that’s pretty much it.”

“Okay, good, that’s par for the course.” He lays back down on Kate’s bed, fully clothed, and pats the empty space next to him. She sits on the edge of her bed, chewing pensively on her lip.

“What did happen with you and Steve, then? On the pool deck?”

Clint groans and puts one of her pillows over his face. It smells way too much like her to be this close to his face for very long. “Do you have to ask the hard hitting questions so early in the morning?”

“Clint, it’s nearly noon.”

“I ask again. Do you have to ask the hard hitting questions so early in the morning?” He tosses the pillow at her, but she catches it, tosses it back. He lets it rest on his chest and lets out a long sigh. “What I say in this room stays in this room, got it? Take it to your grave or I’ll put you there.”

“That bad, huh?” Her laugh is bright and sharp and her eyes are practically glimmering, making Clint’s stomach turn over in that pleasantly unpleasant way that never means anything good. He resists the urge to reach up and smooth her hair between his fingers, but barely and he gets himself caught in a weird half-sitting up half-laying down position that’s not entirely comfortable. Oh well.

“We made out. A lot. Lots of making out.”

“So that’s where you got the hickey, then.” Not a question. Clint’s face is hot. He looks down at his chest. Sure enough, he’s got a brown and purple bruise right between his clavicles. Right where Steve left it. Great. “So that’s a good thing, though, right? The lots of making out?”

“I think--I thought so. But I maybe took it too far for him, I don’t know. Maybe got a little--handsy.” Kate laughs again. Clint’s stomach flips again. This is not going how he wants this conversation to be going. “It’s whatever. He’ll be fine. I was drunk, he was drunk, forgive and forget and all that.”

“Do you want to? Forget, I mean?” Her voice sounds light, but also forced. A loaded question.

“Not--exactly. I mean, he’s. It was--you know. I’m not--fuck.” Clint puts the pillow back over his face and sinks back onto the bed. “Can we not do the feelings talk thing? Not good with feelings. Or talking. Or things.”

Kate picks up the pillow, leans down, and presses her lips against his, softly. Soft enough that he could jerk his head back and break it off. He tangles his fingers in her hair, smoothing the rat’s nest as his tongue tangles with hers.

**Natasha**

The air’s cold, hanging, even in mid-August. James’s street (and Steve’s) is bustling, even in the early morning. People commuting to work, kids out on their stoops playing music and card games and enjoying the last little bit of summer on a cool Brooklyn morning. She props her feet up on the bannister, sitting on the little bench Mrs. Barnes’s landlady had put out a few months ago, when she saw Natasha and James hanging out on the porch. She had brewed herself some coffee and come downstairs to the porch, alone, waiting for James to wake up and join her. Usually, no matter how hungover he was, he’d smell the coffee and wake up not long after, his hair standing up at all ends, and he’d rub the sleep out of his eyes and kiss her and they’d sit on the bench, put out just for them, for the rest of the morning. But he had stayed resolutely asleep, a worry line between his brows when she’d run a hand through his hair.

She’s trying not to mull over the night before, but it’s particularly hard, considering James’s out of character behavior. He normally went off with his football friends, that wasn’t that unusual, but he had disappeared for _hours_ and reappeared stumbling and wired, his body like a bolt of electricity under her hands. They’d danced until Natasha felt like her legs were going to fall off and James wanted to keep dancing, so she begged off, trying to find Clint as the party started winding down. If there was something going on with James, something drug involved, Clint would know. Tony had also been seriously gone, his pupils the size of nickels, his voice carrying louder and farther than usual, his life of the party persona so irresistible and tireless that she knew alcohol and goodwill couldn’t be the only thing fueling it.

She found Steve before she found Clint. He was sitting on the stairs that led from the landing to the rest of the house, his eyes puffy like he’d been crying or rubbing at them. Based on the fact that he smelled like campfire smoke and weed, she figured he’d been rubbing at them.

“You have the worst asthma of anyone I know, and you’re smoking weed?” She cuffed him on the shoulder, but Steve didn’t answer her, lips turned down. She sat down on the steps next to him, more to be a reassuring physical presence than an attempt to be a confidant.

Steve grabbed her sleeve, his eyes wide and red-rimmed and maybe he had been crying. “Natasha, where’s Bucky? I gotta get out of here.”

She attempted to say goodbye to Clint, but whatever Steve had said to Bucky made everything rushed. They rode the train back to Brooklyn. Both Steve and James looked green around the gills and James, uncharacteristically, threw up when they got on the platform. James walked Steve home, his apartment building only two doors down from James’s own, and Natasha waited for him, stripping out of her party dress and into one of James’s t-shirts. He’d seemed ill, hadn’t even kissed her before he passed out.

She hears the door creak and almost starts. James yawns and stretches, his back cracking. He’s not drinking coffee. He knocks her feet off the bannister and sits next to her on the bench, wearing nothing but basketball shorts despite the morning chill. “What happened last night?” He tries to smooth his hair against his head, but to no avail, leaving lines from his fingers through the mess.

“I was sort of hoping you’d be the one to tell me.” Her voice is level, free of the ulterior motives. She’s reserving judgment--on principal, she doesn’t have a problem with drugs. She dated Clint for a solid year. If she’d had a problem with drugs, they’d had to have broken up sooner. It’s the lying by omission that’s getting under her skin. The disappearing. The hiding in plain sight.

“All I remember is the shots in the kitchen. After that, everything’s kind of a blur. Something happened with Steve, I remember that. He was upset about something, wouldn’t tell me what. And Barton was so drunk he started crying. I remember that, too.” He smiles at her, all teeth. Despite lacking the patience for machoism in general, James’s rivalry with Clint was kind of endearing. Not endearing enough for her to forget the matter at hand, but still endearing.

“Remember anything else?” She takes a loud sip of coffee, watching a girl of about six dance on the steps of her porch, still wearing her pink pajamas.

James puts a warm hand on the back of her neck. “You say that like you want me to remember something else. Did I say something? Do something? Oh, wait, did we have sex last night?” Natasha shakes her head, shrugging out of James’s touch. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re mad I passed out.”

He laughs, low in his throat, and Natasha’s stomach does an annoying little flip. She doesn’t want to let him get away with it--she wants a full confession, at least, if not an apology for his behavior--but she also doesn’t want to show her hand just yet, not without more information. He dips his head down to kiss her, almost leisurely, his mouth tasting like toothpaste, and puts his arm around her across the back of the bench. “I can make it up to you,” he whispers against the shell of her ear. “Take a shower with me?”

She follows him back into the apartment, hands wrapped around his bare waist. It’s a choice. Natasha hopes she doesn’t regret making it.

**Bruce**

Clint, predictably, shows up hungover, but he carries boxes up the stairs with about the same enthusiasm as he would have sober. Natasha claims to be “supervising,” which means yelling at them from the hood of Clint’s car and inspecting every article of Bruce’s clothing like a Russian den mother. Bucky is actually overwhelmingly helpful and climbs up into his lofted bed to help with the ridiculous fitted sheet. Steve shows up late, also hungover, but he brings coffee for everyone, thoughtful to the bitter end. Tony doesn’t show up, but Bruce can’t even really pretend to be surprised. Tony is nothing short of unreliable.

Once everything is unpacked, Clint leaves, claiming a headache, and he offers to give the rest of them a ride back. Steve and Bucky take him up on his offer, but Natasha says she’ll catch the train back to the city. Bruce tries not to feel overwhelmingly grateful, but he’s sure it’s written all over his face. He’s not ready to be left alone with his brand new life yet. They sit, cross legged, on top of his bed, sipping on Steve’s coffees.

“No Tony,” Natasha observes, her eyes scanning him over the rim of her Starbucks. He averts his eyes, doesn’t say anything, contemplates where to put all of his stupid posters. Probably put the Pacific Rim one over his bed since no one will probably actually ever be up here besides himself. “That bother you?”

“If him not showing up to things I asked him to show up to bothered me, I don’t think I’d keep inviting him anywhere.” He stretches, his back cracking as he leans his head against the concrete wall behind him. Mews Hall is updated, one of the most updated dorms at Cornell, but it still feels kind of archaic and Spartan and far away from the roofs of his friend’s apartment buildings and the hustle and bustle of riding the train around New York City passed curfew. Even with WiFi.

“What about last night? At Kate’s?” Natasha stretches out next to him, laying flat across his bed like she belongs there. She puts her feet high up on the wall next to his head.

“What? The dancing? Not like we haven’t done that before, either.” He feels a headache creeping up behind his eyes. A Tony Stark specific headache. One he’s been fighting off and on for years. He can’t help but feel like Natasha is needling him. She doesn’t do anything unnecessarily, but she’s not exactly transparent about her motivations either. He just does his best to fill in the lines between her lines and hopes he can catch up to her eventually.

“But that’s all you ever do. Have you even kissed?” She’s twirling her hair between her fingers.

When he doesn’t answer quickly enough, she lifts her head and shoots him a glare. He throws his hands up sheepishly. “I don’t know, I can’t remember. We might have, when he was drunk. It’s not that big of a deal, Natasha. If he wanted to fuck me, he would have fucked me by now, he’s made that perfectly obvious.”

“It’s a big deal if you fuck your life up over him, Banner.” She sits up again, her feet sliding down the wall. She tucks her legs under herself, sitting on her heels and leans forward, pressing the heels of her hands into Bruce’s knees. “Promise me you’ll make some new friends, okay? Meet someone. Forget about Tony Stark.”

He smiles sadly and puts his hands over hers for a second. “I’m not in the habit of making promises I can’t keep.”

She returns his smile, just as sadly. “I know.”

**Thor**

His hangover reducing regiment is well rehearsed and he’s up before noon, downing a huge glass of ice water and several aspirin. It’s Monday, the last Monday before his last year of school, and his parents have both already gone to work. His mom left a cute note on the refrigerator, like she does everyday. “Hope you didn’t party too hard, boys!” with a lopsided smiley face and a hastily scribbled “XO.” He thinks about waking up Loki, see if he wants to get a late breakfast or something, but thinks better of it. The last time he woke Loki up after a party hadn’t gone so well. He decides to fry some eggs and bacon instead. Usually the smell is enough to get Loki up. Or at least it had been when they were kids.

He cracks the first egg and hears a tap on the sliding glass door on the side of their house, closest to the detached garage. He watches the egg for a second, deciding what to do. Maybe it’s just a confused UPS worker. Maybe it’s one of Loki’s annoying friends. Maybe it’s one of _Thor’s_ annoying friends. As the egg starts sizzling and the grease is jumping, the tapping is more insistent. “THOR! THOR, IT’S TONY, OPEN THE DOOR!”

Tony pushes past him into the kitchen, looking frazzled. He takes his sunglasses off and tosses them on the bar counter that serves as their kitchen table before heading to their refrigerator and pouring himself a glass of orange juice. Thor can count on one hand the number of times that Tony has been to his house in the four years of their association, but he can’t even act like it’s out of character for Tony to show up and make himself at home without even bothering to text Thor first.

“Want some breakfast? I’m making eggs and bacon.” Thor picks up the spatula and flips the egg over, pressing it flat without breaking the yolk exactly like his mother taught him years ago. “Over easy or sunny side up or scrambled. Lady’s choice this morning.”

“It’s noon.” Thor shrugs, flipping the egg onto a plate and holding it out in front of Tony. Tony takes it almost impatiently and nearly snatches the fork out of his hand when Thor turns back around.

Thor raises an eyebrow at him as he puts three strips of bacon into the pan, watching them shrink up immediately. “What brings you to my neck of the woods? You’re not usually the type to make social calls.”

“Is your brother here?” Tony asks, mouth full of egg.

Thor flips the bacon absently, his brow furrowed. “Yeah, he’s asleep. Why?” None of his friends have ever shown any particular interest in Loki. Not that Thor minded. He’s close to Loki, but he feels like most of what they have in common is only by virtue of growing up in the same household and that his friends, however well-intentioned they might be, would be bad influences on Loki. He kept a lot of his “lifestyle” away from Loki, as much as he possibly could, and Tony would be probably last on the list of people he’d introduce to his brother.

“Wanted to talk to him.”

Thor dumps the bacon on Tony’s plate before cracking another egg for himself. “About what?”

“Business,” Tony says after a long drink of orange juice, plainly avoiding the question. Thor leans on the counter and crosses his arms over his chest. Probably more intimidating if he was wearing a shirt, but Tony gets the message all the same. “Look, I’m into the doting big brother act as much as the next guy, but it’s not that big of a deal. Nothing you need concern yourself with.”

“Tony, my brother is _fourteen_. What business could you possibly have with him?” He ends up breaking the yolk of his own egg.

“I told you, it’s nothing to worry about. I just have to talk to him. As soon as he wakes up. In fact…” Tony shoves the last bit of bacon in his mouth and pushes the chair back on the tile with a loud screech. “Think I’m going to go wake him up and then I’ll be out of your hair.” Thor catches his arm, trying to stop him from going up the stairs of the split level, but Tony wiggles out of his grip. “Don’t be a jerk, come on, Thor.”

“I’m _not_ being a jerk, you’re the one--” But Tony’s already up the stairs. Thor feels like he should follow, but he knows he’ll get about as many answers out of Loki as he will out of Tony, so he fries the whole packet of bacon in the time it takes for Tony to come back downstairs.

“Thanks for the egg, man.” He pushes his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose and is gone just as quickly as he came. Thor’s honestly surprised he even had the decency to thank him, all things considered.

****

Act II

**Natasha**

It’s raining their entire first day of school and well into the night. Her parents haven’t given her a curfew, exactly, but they sternly reminded her that she shouldn’t be spending as much time with Bucky as she had been that summer if she expected to keep her grades up. Or maintain her relative freedom. But she’s not going to see James.

She sprints down the stairs of their apartment, five flights, and out the front door, past the nosy doorman quickly enough to evade notice, her hood pulled low over her head. The group home Clint’s been staying at has a huge fire escape, an iron extension of the building practically swallowing the entire left side. Clint has a window on the left side. She walks the mile to the group home, her light jacket soaked through by the time she reaches the alley and climbs up the fire escape. She can see Clint’s bunkmate with a book open on his lap. She doesn’t want to scare him, so she perches like a bird, ducked under a bit of the scaffolding to get what little relief from the rain it can offer. Clint comes in about fifteen minutes later, rubbing a towel over his hair, shirtless, too large sweatpants hanging off of his hips. She raps on the glass of his window, hard.

He peeks his head out of the window as if he’s making sure she’s not an apparition. “Natasha?”

“Put some clothes on and get out here, I want to talk to you.”

He frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. “Natasha, it’s raining.”

“I am aware of that, thank you. Just get out here.”

She watches him pull on a t-shirt and then he climbs out the window to join her, trying to duck under the same bit of low hanging scaffolding with no luck. His hair is already getting plastered to his head from the rain. He crosses his arms over his chest, but he doesn’t make any other indications of displeasure. He waits for her cue, his jaw clenched tight.

“Do you know anything about James using?”

He sighs, pushing most of the air out of his nose. “I don’t really hang out with Bucky by choice, if you hadn’t noticed.” She doesn’t respond, inspecting his face for any sign of a tell. There isn’t one. There hardly ever is. Clint is better at hiding what he’s thinking than anyone gives him credit for. “No, I don’t know anything about him using. I don’t even know anyone that would sell to him. Besides me.” There are dimples in his cheeks when he smiles. She used to love them. Maybe she still does.

“Are you moving more than pot these days?”

Clint uncrosses his arms, a furrow appearing between his brows. She didn’t want to show her hand this early, but Clint is the only one of her friends who would know anything about it. And the only one who would help her find out what he didn’t know. “No, I’m not. And I can’t say I know many of the people that would be pushing anything harder anymore, either. They all graduated. I’ll keep my ear to the ground.”

She nods, grateful. She makes a move to jump down from the bannister, but Clint opens his mouth, stops her. He closes it again, swallowing whatever else he was going to say, turning it into another question. “What do you want me to do when I find out?”

“Nothing. I’ll handle it.” She really does jump down from the bannister, the full force of the rain drumming on the top of her hood. She makes a move to climb down the ladder and off the fire escape, but Clint catches her arm.

“Natasha, if he’s in over his head--”

“It’s not that serious yet. I’m taking the steps to make sure it stays that way.”

She expects him to put up more of a fight, but he lets her arm go. He doesn’t even stay out on the fire escape to watch her leave.

**Clint**

Kate loops her arm through his when they ride the elevator up to Tony’s. Which is weird, considering when he picked her up, she had been the one to establish the ground rules before they’d even got back in the car. “I am _not_ your plus one. I am not going to be supervised and babysat the entire night. If you get drunk, I am not _your_ babysitter, either. Or your latest make out buddy or whatever. I am also not listening to you cry for an hour again, so keep your shit together. If your friends ask, say I heard about it from Loki and I wanted to come. You did not invite me. We are not together in any sense of the word, you are just driving me. We are not even friends. Got it?” Clint threw his hands up in surrender. She hadn’t really left much room for argument.

But now her hand is curled on his wrist, purple chipped nail polish on her fingernails, and she smiles up at him under her bangs and Clint’s really confused. She drops her arm when the elevator opens on Tony’s penthouse, though. He has his own penthouse on the top floor of a building his father owns. It’s soundproof, a bit of genius engineering on Howard Stark’s part, and bigger than the entirety of the group home, pretty much. His bed is one of those beds that dips into the floor and he has a disco ball that descends from the ceiling and a black light in his living room for some indiscernible reason (especially considering the things they always find when Tony _does_ turn on the black light) and he has professional grade speakers, although his shit taste in music hardly makes it worth it.

Kate sucks in a breath when she takes in the penthouse and Clint laughs under his breath. “You live in a mansion, Bishop.”

“I don’t have a disco ball,” she retorts quickly, coupling it with a swift punch to his ribs. He rubs the spot and tries to walk as far far away from her as possible so it doesn’t even seem like they’ve come in together, but Tony spots them. Of course.

“Clint! Freshman!” He’s already got two beers in his hands and he’s wearing an annoying red bathrobe like he’s a seventeen year old Hugh Hefner. He hands the unopened beer to Kate, looking her up and down appraisingly. Clint’s fists clench involuntarily at his sides. Kate clinks her beer against Tony’s, smiling enigmatically at Clint. “So is this your official coming out party, then? Do you two crazy kids have something you want to share with the class?” Clint tries to shoulder past him, but Tony catches his arm. “Details before you can get any of the hard stuff, big boy.”

“We’re just friends,” Clint snarls, shaking Tony off and heading towards the refrigerator. That went about as well as expected. He shouldn’t have invited Kate. He can hear Tony’s low voice and Kate’s high, bright laugh and he knows the only way he’s not going to end up homicidal by the end of the night is if he ends up truly trashed.

Bruce is leaning against the counter and he tilts his beer at Clint in a mock salute, shaking his head. “Heard your entrance.”

“Mhmmm.” Clint takes a long pull of the beer. “Think Tony’s got any tequila? This is going to be a long night.”

“I’m sure he’ll break it out before too long. When I got here, he was in a screaming match with Thor, so at least you’re not the only one having a long night.” Bruce swings himself up on the counter and crosses his legs, running a hand through his hair. He looks tired around his eyes, even through his glasses. “Tony invited Thor’s little brother, Loki. He’s a freshman, too,” he tacks on when Clint raises an eyebrow. Clint nods, mulling it over. He only met Thor’s little brother once, at the one and only football game he’s attended in his high school career. Loki hadn’t left much of a memorable impression, making it all the more odd that Tony would invite him.

“So how’s the college life treating you? Shouldn’t you be at a frat party or something?” Bruce shrugs noncommittally and Clint knows better than to keep asking. “Like your roommate, at least?”

Bruce’s eyes light up. “Yeah, actually. He’s a biology major, but he’s got a lot of organic chemistry knowledge, too, and we had a long conversation about the actual physical ramifications of string theory. It was really cool. He’s got this ant farm, it’s incredible. He built it all himself and his ants are like mutants, it’s crazy. And I can tell you’re losing interest fast--”

Clint laughs, waving a hand in dismissal. “No, no. Go on. Your enthusiasm is infectious.”

“His name is Hank Pym,” Bruce finishes sheepishly. “We’re getting along fine.”

They migrate to the front room. Thor is sulking on one of the couches, talking in a hushed voice with Jane, probably still bent out of shape about his kid brother being there. Natasha is sitting on Bucky’s lap on the floor, his fingers tangled up in her hair. Tony is still talking to Kate and still wearing that ridiculous bathrobe. Steve is lounged in one of the chairs, a couple of empty beer bottles next to him already. Clint’s not sure if that’s a very good sign or a very bad one. Or which one he wants it to be.

He sits on the floor next to Steve regardless, folding his legs up underneath him. Steve shifts in his chair, pointedly avoiding eye contact. It’s been that way for the last few weeks, even at school. Steve won’t go out of his way to make it clear that he’s avoiding Clint, but he’s made sure that they’ve never been alone together or had the opportunity to discuss what happened at Kate’s party. He’d been sort of overly polite, in fact, as if afraid showing anything other than a rehearsed affection for Clint would make it overwhelmingly obvious what they’d almost done.

“Are you and Kate…?” He trails off. His voice is measured, level, controlled, and it almost makes Clint more mad than Tony’s flamboyance.

“No. She heard Loki was going to be here.” He stretches his legs out, nearly knocking over his own beer. He catches Steve watching the line of his body and tries not to grin about it. “I wasn’t kidding, you know. About wanting to see you.” Back to avoiding eye contact. Steve takes a long pull of his beer, probably a polite indication that he doesn’t want to continue the conversation, but Clint presses on anyway. “Would it bother you if Kate and I were a thing? I mean, not that it’s a consideration in us becoming a thing because we’re definitely not becoming a thing, I was just--curious.” Clint scrubs a hand down his face. That could have gone smoother.

“Are you asking me if I’m jealous? ‘Cause if that’s what you’re asking me, I think you better pick a different conversation topic.” Clint’s a little floored by the weight behind Steve’s voice. He throws his hands up and scoots farther away from Steve on the floor. Steve shakes his head, takes another drink of beer. “Sorry, I’m just--I’m not good at playing games.”

“Who says I’m playing a game?” He tries to be the picture of innocence, but he can tell by Steve’s raised eyebrow that he’s not pulling it off. “I’m not, I promise. I--uh. I wasn’t completely upset by what happened at Kate’s, truth be told. Not trying to repress it or anything. I mean, I wouldn’t actually be that upset if it happened again. Not tonight or anything, but you know. Sometime. When you wanted it to. I wouldn’t mind that, is all I’m saying.”

“Come up on the roof with me,” Steve says suddenly. He stands up and stretches a hand out to Clint. Clint takes it and tries to ignore that his stomach is sinking like a stone. Steve pulls him up hard so their chests are flush for a second, Steve’s head turned up towards Clint’s, his lips slightly parted. He smells like alcohol, but it takes everything in Clint’s power to break eye contact and not smash their mouths together right then and there.

Tony’s roof is practically another penthouse in its own right. It has a huge circus like tent protecting it for all weather, its own fully stocked bar, more furniture than Clint’s seen in any Brooklyn apartment, and a hot tub. Tony’s general statement about the hot tub is that it is off limits unless you are exchanging bodily fluids with him as that is generally where the exchanging of bodily fluids happens, but Clint has definitely stripped to his boxers and turned on the jets on more than one occasion.

Steve heads over to the bar first and Clint follows him, although he doesn’t feel like drinking much anymore. His whole body feels hot, charged, like there’s static electricity in the air between them. Every moment they’re not touching feels heavy, like he’s slugging through water. Steve pours himself a couple of fingers of Fireball and offers to pour for Clint, but he shakes his head. He doesn’t want to lose this feeling, this raw, desperate feeling. It’s been a while since he’s felt it. He’d like to know why he’s started feeling it again.

“I’ve been… avoiding you, if I’m being honest.” Steve pulls a face as he downs the Fireball, shaking his head like he’s got Fireball in his ears. “I mean, I’m sure you noticed. I just--I don’t know how to say what I’m trying to say, so I thought it might be better to just--not. Not say it. But I can tell that’s not going to work, so.” Steve pushes out a big huff of breath and pours himself an even more generous amount of Fireball. His burgeoning alcoholism would have been endearing under different circumstances, but Clint can tell when a guy’s trying to pull his punches. Steve’s not playing it close to the chest--he’s telling Clint, in no uncertain terms, that he doesn’t want to play at all.

“If I tell you something, will you promise not to laugh?” Not exactly what he expected. Clint nods, unsure what he’s actually agreeing to. “I’m kind of… a virgin? I mean, you probably figured that out, from how I was acting and stuff, but I’ve never--like second base, with you, was the most I’ve done.” Clint keeps his promise, but barely. He wouldn’t laugh because of Steve’s innocence. In fact, it’s one of the things that’s absolutely mystifyingly attractive about him, but because of how flustered it’s made Steve. As inept as Clint is at articulately expressing his emotions, Steve is worse.

“That was second base to you?” He can’t help himself.

Steve turns a brilliant shade of scarlet. “I mean, you touched my--you know. That’s second base.” He says it with finality, but looks up at Clint for confirmation. Clint throws his hands up and shrugs. “But what I’m _trying_ to say is that I don’t have a lot of experience and--and you do, or you seem to, and it seems like that’s something you want--from me, and I don’t know if I can give that to you. How you would want it.” Steve downs the Fireball, shaking his head like a dog again, tears welling up at the corners of his eyes from the burn.

“And what is it that you think I want?” Clint shoves his hands in his pockets, taking a couple of steps back from the bar, hoping to invite Steve back towards the couch. Steve doesn’t take the hint, pouring himself another glass of Fireball. He might as well be drinking straight out of the bottle at this point, but Clint doesn’t say so.

“I mean, you want to have sex with me, right?” Even Steve’s ears are red.

Clint finally gives up on leading Steve away from the hard liquor and sits on the couch by himself, stretching both his arms wide across the back. “I mean, yeah, but not--not only? Does that make sense? I don’t think there’s a magic switch with sex. It’s not like I turn off the rest of my brain when I’m around you. You’re still my friend. I’m not trying to--I don’t know, take advantage of you or anything. And I don’t care about experience, I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. It’s not like I’m some sex expert just because I’ve had it. It’s different every time you do it, you know.” His voice has, against his will, dropped a couple of octaves, descending dangerously close to husky territory. Steve’s eyes flash a dark in response and he finally comes out from behind the bar and sits on the other end of the couch. “And besides, the making out part was pretty good. If we only end up doing that, that’s cool with me. Really cool with me.” He leans over to tap the side of Steve’s tumbler with his fingernail, making a resounding clink. “Do you want to have sex with me?”

He didn’t think it was possible for a human being to turn so many shades of red. There should be steam coming out of Steve’s collar. “I--yeah.”

“Okay, that’s settled, then.” Clint closes the space between them quickly, his fingers brushing against Steve’s neck as their thighs collide. Some of Steve’s drink sloshes over both of them, but Clint doesn’t mind. He ducks his head, trying to catch Steve’s lips, but Steve puts a hand on his chest and pushes, almost unsure of himself but still insistent enough that Clint sucks his bottom lip back into his mouth.

“Wait. I don’t--I’m not.” Steve scrubs a hand down his face, more out of frustration than embarrassment. “I’m going to tell you something else, okay? Don’t laugh. I always imagined that my first time would be with, you know, the _one_. And I really want to--with you, but I don’t think, I mean, I don’t know if you’re--isn’t it a bit soon to tell that? Maybe we should just slow down.”

Clint kisses him square on the mouth, taking Steve’s surprise as an opportunity to suck the Fireball taste off of his tongue. Steve’s tumbler shatters on the concrete underneath them as he grabs desperately at the front of Clint’s shirt. For a second, he’s sure that Steve’s going to push him away, his palms flat on his chest, but his fingers curl desperately and hold fast, digging in hard. Clint lets one of his hands snake up to the base of Steve’s neck, deepening the kiss and inviting Steve’s tongue back into his mouth. Steve makes a sound somewhere between a pleased sigh and a groan in the back of his throat and it goes straight to the pit of Clint’s constantly sinking stomach. He drops his other hand to Steve’s knee, dragging his fingers up and down Steve’s thigh deliberately. Steve shivers, gasping into his mouth, and Clint breaks off the kiss, trying hard not to stare at Steve’s half-lidded eyes, his eyelashes practically touching his cheeks. His bottom lip is shiny and crushed and as red as the rest of him.

“Sorry.” Clint runs a hand up the back of his head, making his hair stand on end. Steve’s hands are still on his chest, wrinkling up the front of his shirt. “I heard you, about the slowing down thing, I really did, I’ve just been wanting to do that for so long, I couldn’t help it.” He grimaces, expecting Steve to tell him off, but Steve still looks thoroughly… well, not exactly fucked out, but not exactly like he’s thinking with the head on top of his shoulders, either. “Won’t happen again. I’ll work on keeping my tongue to myself.” 

Steve pulls him forward by the shirt, smiling against his lips as he kisses him again, lightly, barely dipping his tongue between Clint’s lips. “Please don’t.”

**Bruce**

He’s actually already in his pajamas when he opens the door to a clearly inebriated Tony Stark, holding both of his hands on either side of the door frame to keep himself standing, wearing sunglasses despite the fact that it’s September and also dark outside. Bruce has no recollection of telling Tony that he was even in Mews, let alone his dorm room number, but he can’t say he’s surprised to see him. He shoves Tony out in the hall, not wanting to have to introduce him to Hank in his current state, grabbing him by the collar when he almost falls backwards down the steps. Tony smiles wide, all teeth, and grabs Bruce’s shoulders to steady himself. He looks Bruce up and down for what feels like ten minutes.

“Why are you in your pajamas?” Tony finally asks, plucking at the plaid pattern of his pajama bottoms. “It’s Saturday.”

“I still sleep on Saturday, believe it or not. Tony, what are you doing here?”

“The night is young! We are young! It’s Saturday!” His voice is echoing down the hall. Bruce covers his mouth with a hand, hissing for him to be quiet, people are sleeping, but Tony licks his hand, steering Bruce back toward the door of his room. “You should change and come out with me. There’s a party like two buildings down from this one, I saw it on my way up here.”

“A party that’s going to get shut down by the cops before midnight, like they all are. I’ll change, but I’m taking you home, Tony. You’re drunk.”

“Can I help you change?” His grin is bordering on lecherous. Bruce slams the door in his face and throws on jeans and a sweater as fast as he can, grabbing them off the floor so as not to disturb Hank.

Hank isn’t asleep yet. He has his laptop open on his stomach, some complicated programming algorithm open on the screen. “Who is that? A friend of yours?” he asks, face lit up blue.

“Uh, yeah. From high school. He’s--well. I’m just going to help him out, take him home, clean him up, that sort of thing. Should be back in an hour or two. I’ll be quiet.” He fixes the collar of his sweater and heads out the door without really saying goodbye to Hank, too afraid that Tony will find some way to break the doorknob right off of their door and bust in. Tony is supporting himself against the bannister and his smile widens again when he sees Bruce.

“Fuck, I love that sweater on you. It’s like in my top ten list of sweaters, honestly.” Tony runs his hands up and down Bruce’s chest appraisingly, humming low in his throat. Bruce grabs his wrists and starts guiding them both downstairs, walking backwards so he can catch Tony if he starts to fall. “We are going to this party, right? I’d hate to see you wasting your college glory days sitting around in your pajamas. Do I have to have all your fun for you?”

“You seem like you’ve already had enough fun for the both of us,” Bruce observes, half-scooping Tony around the waist when he refuses to step down off of one of the landings. “I told you, I’m taking you home.”

They end up at a party in one of the bigger co-ed dorms on campus. Bruce doesn’t even know anyone who lives in the building, but it’s not a big enough deterrent for Tony, who walks in like his dad built it all from the ground up. There’s a keg stand going on and a mass of bodies dancing in the common room, all of the furniture shoved up in the corners of the room. Tony is holding Bruce’s hand like he’s afraid he’ll lose him. He’s not smiling as wide, but his eyes are bright, his pupils blown wide and reflecting the strobe light, flashing brown red green pink back to brown. His hand is warm in Bruce’s, his grip tight, and Bruce’s head feels heavy on his shoulders, like it always does around Tony. His thoughts come slower, as if reaching him through a barrier, and the only time he ever feels like he’s allowed to have fun is around Tony. As heavy as his head is, his heart is much lighter.

Tony leads him out to the dance floor, keeping one of Bruce’s hands in his own while his other one climbs up to cup the back of Bruce’s neck, holding their heads together. Tony laughs, low in his throat, his breath hot on Bruce’s cheeks. He smells like alcohol, but Bruce doesn’t mind, trying to keep them both steady, although Tony’s grinding hips have better ideas. He knocks them both off balance and Bruce slings his arms around Tony’s waist to keep them both upright. Tony laughs, breathy and high, his hands now roaming up and down Bruce’s back, up underneath his sweater. 

“You know what?” His lips are against the shell of Bruce’s ear, sending shivers up and down his spine. “I don’t think we’ve ever even kissed.” Bruce turns his head into Tony and tries to catch his lips before he can stop to think about it, but Tony snaps his head back, his pupils so blown, his irises look completely black in the light. “What a shame.”

Bruce smashes their mouths together. It’s not exactly like what he thought kissing Tony would be. Not much of a power play as Tony sort of folds against him, like his knees are about to buckle. His mouth opens up and he’s making a really soft sound as Bruce licks his way between Tony’s lips. It’s not earth shattering and Tony’s knees don’t actually buckle, but he can’t act as if wasn’t worth the wait. Tony’s hands are under his shirt, his nails digging into the small of his back, leaving light, pink scratches.

And then it’s quite obvious to Bruce that Tony’s inability to stand has nothing to do with the kiss and more to do with whatever he’d been doing before he came to Cornell. He’s pale and there’s cold sweat on his face and he sinks straight to the floor, out from Bruce’s loose grip on his waist. Bruce’s knees hit the floor right after him and he grabs onto the front of Tony’s shirt, giving him a gentle shake when he doesn’t respond to his shouted name. He can tell that Tony’s dangerously close to passing out, so he does his best to get most of Tony’s weight across his shoulders, dragging him through the mass of bodies, eyes darting all around the room for a single familiar face or even a concerned one, but no one is paying any attention to them.

He manages to make it up one flight of stairs, carrying all of Tony’s weight, and into a men’s communal bathroom. He shoves Tony in one of the bathtubs, fully clothed, and turns on the water. It comes out like ice and Tony’s sputtering, breathing hard, but awake. Awake enough to throw up all down the front of his own shirt and pass out again. Bruce strips his shirt off and dumps it into the bottom of the bathtub and puts Tony’s head under the torrent of water. He keeps repeating his name like a prayer, hoping something will get through to him. He doesn’t want to call the ambulance, but if Tony doesn’t wake up…

His eyes are half-lidded, his mouth parted, and he spits out some of the water, shaking his head until he decides that’s a bad idea. He sits up a little bit before deciding that, too, is a bad idea. “Bruce, what happened?” He clutches at his bare chest, grimacing at the smell of his vomit and the weight of his soaked pants. The water has warmed, but he’s still shivering.

“You… Jesus, Tony.” Bruce sinks bonelessly to the bathroom floor, resting his head against the little privacy door. He draws his knees up to his chest and tries to think of what to do next. He’s not dragging Tony back to his dorm room to make sure he doesn’t choke on his own vomit and he’s not sure he wants to take the long train ride back to Tony’s when he's like this.

He calls Natasha. It’s the only thing he can think to do. She sounds groggy, like he woke her up from sleep, but she assures him it’s fine, what’s the matter? Tony. She sighs, what now? “I think he took something--strong. Bad. He… Passed out. I thought he was dying. He threw up all over himself, so I’ll give him some clothes and stuff, but can you and Bucky come pick him up, or something? I don’t… It was really scary. He needs someone to watch him.”

“Bruce, yeah, we’ll come right away.” She’s quiet for a second, but he can tell she’s got more to say. “It’s not your fault he’s like this, you know. And it’s not your responsibility to take care of him. It never was.”

“He’s not using me.” His voice cracks, but Natasha has the decency not to comment. “He’s not. He’s--he does care about me, he’s just. You know how he is.”

“Yeah, yeah I do.”

**Thor**

He can hear that Loki’s home, the distinct sounds of his desk chair dragging on the floor audible from the doorway. Thor tosses his backpack aside and kicks off his shoes before taking the stairs two at a time. He hasn’t had time to confront Loki about what’s going on with him and Tony, not with football practice and Jane and school and his friends. He opens Loki’s bedroom door without knocking. Loki is sitting cross-legged at the desk he’s had since he started middle school, chewing on a pen, rolling back towards his bed to peer at an open textbook. He doesn’t seem all that surprised or perturbed to see Thor. “Close the door behind you,” is all he says.

“What are you doing?” Thor takes a seat on top of Loki’s bed, near his pillows, shuffling some of the school books around.

Loki takes the pen out of his mouth to throw it with spectacularly good aim at Thor’s head. He ducks just in time for it to glance off the headboard. “Homework, what does it look like, you oaf?”

Thor picks up Loki’s psychology book to use as a shield should the conversation turn heated. Loki ignores him, turning the page of his textbook before turning back to his laptop. “So I noticed you’ve been, uh, hanging out with my friend Tony lately.” Loki makes a noncommittal sound of agreement, but doesn’t turn around, his back hunched and his shoulders drawn. “What have you two been doing?”

Loki swivels in his chair, stretching his legs out and using his bed as a footrest, kicking his textbook closed. He crosses his arms over his chest and raises one eyebrow, his well-rehearsed argument face. “Are you sure you want to have this conversation?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Thor mirrors Loki’s posture, dropping the psychology textbook into his lap.

“It means you’ve had your head so far up Jane’s ass, I doubt you even have any friends anymore. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Scared I’ll replace you?” Loki sneers at him, but Thor doesn’t rise to the bait.

“No, it’s about you still being a punk kid and not knowing when you’re in over your head. Tony is a cool guy, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not exactly the kind of guy I want hanging around my kid brother.”

“You think he’s a bad influence? Are you certain you’re not just channeling our father?”

“He _is_ a bad influence. I know he’s a bad influence. It’s not a question of him being a bad influence, that’s a fact.”

“Oh, really? Has he been a bad influence on you? I’m pretty sure you’d be drunk every Saturday whether you met Tony Stark or not, it’d just be off of cheaper liquor.”

“I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you. What were you doing at his party? The two of you disappeared for like two fucking hours.”

“Did you ask him?”

“No, I’m asking you.”

“It’s not your job to look after me, you know. I’m old enough to do it myself now, thanks.”

“Then maybe you should start acting like it. Just tell me what’s going on.” Thor stands up, feeling too wired to sit still for much longer. Loki lounges even farther back in the chair, plainly not impressed. Thor uncrosses his arms and shoves his hands in his pockets, waiting for an answer.

“We’re just hanging out, it’s not really that big of a deal.”

“I fail to see what the two of you have in common that you’re spending that much time together.”

“Oh, because you have so much in common with him, do you? Did you even know that he designed the building that they live in, Stark Tower? When he was _eleven_ , he made the specs for that whole building.”

“So you’re exchanging notes on architecture? For two hours? In the middle of a party?”

Loki uncrosses his arms to sit up higher in the chair, his face curled into a snarl. “It’s none of your fucking business what I’m doing with Tony. You made that perfectly clear when you made sure all of your friends knew I was your _adopted_ brother.”

“That’s what this is about, then? Using him as some sort of revenge?”

Loki swivels back around in his chair, clicking the mousepad to wake up his laptop. “Believe it or not, Thor, not every decision I make has everything to do with you. I know it’s hard to accept, believe me, but my world doesn’t actually revolve around you.”

“My friends are worried about it, too,” Thor throws in, feeling desperate. He and Loki have never been the best at communicating, but he feels like Loki had shut himself in like a steel trap. He couldn’t have changed that much without Thor noticing.

“Your friends? You don’t know anything about what your friends are worried about. None of you do. Please don’t try to lecture me about what’s going on in my life when you don’t even know what’s going on in your own.” He didn’t turn around or stop typing, but there was a lilt in his voice, the same lilt he always used when he was about to deliver a crushing, final blow.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You don’t know the first thing about my friends--”

“Really? Let’s see. Barton and Rogers are fucking, or close to fucking, but I imagine you probably didn’t know that. It’s going to blow up in both of their faces, though, because Barton is still in love with Romanoff, always will be, and Rogers is making eyes at her boyfriend, what’s his name? Bucky? That’s one thing I know about your _friends_. I also know that Banner is scared and sad and feeling alone and if something doesn’t change, I doubt very much he’s going to make it all the way through his first year of college. _I_ still remember what happened the last time he got like that, even if the rest of you would rather forget. He’s a ticking time bomb and you’re all too blind to do anything useful about it. You’re all so wrapped up in your petty lives and what’s going to happen when you graduate, you can’t even see that everything is crumbling all around you.”

Thor slams his door so hard, the entire frame shakes like he’s started an earthquake.

**Tony**

He wakes up like there’s water in his lungs, sputtering and gasping for breath, hands fisted up in cold, wet sheets. Everything slams back into his head so hard, even his ears start hurting, a dull pressure he can’t shake out of his head. His mouth is dry and his lips are cracking and the entire room is spinning. He wants to close his eyes, slip back into unconsciousness, but he’s not entirely sure where he is, what he’s doing there, or what happened the night before. The bed he’s in is not his own, that much he knows. The light hurts his eyes and he feels like there’s a hundred pound barbell across his chest when he sits up, but he props himself up against the pillows, holding his head between his hands.

Natasha Romanoff is sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes calculating and cold as she waits for him to regain his senses.

“Mornin’,” he rasps, his vocal chords feeling like they’re rubbing against sandpaper. Natasha gestures to a glass of ice water sitting next to him on the bedside table. He drinks the whole thing in a couple of gulps, swishing the last little bit around to get the bad taste out of his mouth. “So I’m guessing there’s not a good reason I spent the night in your bed?”

“No.” Her eyes don’t change. He’s not even sure she’s blinking. This cannot be good. He tries to remember anything that happened the night before. He used most of what he’d bought from Loki, he did remember that, as well as drinking about half of a bottle of Jack by himself, and he remembered Bruce in that sweater, but nothing else. Nothing about how he managed to end up in Natasha Romanoff’s bed wearing only his boxer shorts. She isn’t offering any answers, either.

“Look, I don’t know what I even owe you an apology for, frankly, so why don’t we get on with the verbal flogging and I’ll take a shower and get out of your hair. How does that sound?” He props himself up more firmly against the pillows, his legs feeling like lead. He wishes, idly, that he had spared maybe a bump of Loki’s stuff, to take off the sharp parts of the morning.

“I’m not who you need to apologize to.” Her voice is like steel and Tony barely resists the urge to wince in response. His head is throbbing and he wants nothing more than to sink back into her bed and stay there until his eyes don’t feel like they’re going to pop out of his head.

“What did I do?” He lays back down, but pushes the covers off of himself a little, stretching so his shoulders will crack. He kicks Natasha lightly, but she doesn’t move. Or move his foot when he leaves it resting against her thigh.

“Tony. You fucking _overdosed_ last night.”

Oh.

“I didn’t overdose, that’s a gross overreaction. I--”

“When James and I made it to Cornell, you were foaming at the mouth. James held your head in his lap the whole way home to make sure you didn’t aspirate your own vomit. You cried and sweat all night like you had a fever. You overdosed, Tony. If you had gotten any worse, I was taking you to the hospital. You’re lucky, you know. To be alive.” It’s amazing how she could say all of that without showing any signs that she genuinely cared about Tony’s well-being. She said it as if it was all a fact. It certainly left no room for argument, and made sure that it was something he couldn’t just brush under the rug like all of the other times he’d done something equally stupid, selfish, and likely to inconvenience his friends both literally and figuratively. “I didn’t think you wanted the press--or your father--finding out what you’d been up to.”

He feels suddenly self-conscious. He’s been in this state of undress around Natasha before, but under wildly different circumstances. And he’d made sure Howard Stark hadn’t left anything that showed that time. He had a motley of bruises on his ribs. He could write it off as having fallen down the stairs last night, and most people would believe him, but Natasha had a way of needling secrets out of people without them opening their mouths.

“I haven’t ‘been up to’ anything, it was _one_ night.” He huffs out a quick breath, trying to roll over on his side, but he feels like the entire earth is pressing against his chest, so he stays flat on his back, starfished across Natasha’s duvet, his foot still pressed into her thigh.

“What about that night at Kate’s? And your own stupid party? You can’t convince me you weren’t high then.” Facts. She was still stating facts. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Natasha is a professional guilt tripper, but she’s saying it all like they’re having a normal conversation. Like they’re on even footing. He wishes she would just yell at him. It would make it all easier. No need to admit guilt or reevaluate his life choices.

“Yeah, but there was no threat of me aspirating my own vomit those nights, was there? I’ll keep my drug use to the noticeably minimum and try not to inconvenience you and your incredibly generous boyfriend any longer, okay? Is that what you want to hear?” He props himself up on his elbows to look at her, his head feeling like a soda can crushed between bits of steel, but he maintains eye contact through the nausea.

“What about Bruce?”

“What about him?” Tony lays back down, sighing heavily. He does remember dancing with Bruce, a little. He doesn’t remember anything about the Cornell campus, how he even made it to Bruce’s door, but he remembers the distinct texture of that damn sweater under his fingertips and strobe lights flashing against Bruce’s hair, Bruce's teeth when he smiled.

“Tony, do you even remember anything that happened last night?” She sounds almost concerned and Tony feels like his chest is caving in. If Natasha is actually going soft on him, he might be in real trouble here.

“What, did I throw up on his shoes or something? I’ll buy him a new pair. I’ll buy him forty pairs of shoes, whatever.”

She stretches out on the bed next to him, nudging him so he’ll give her some space. Her skin is cool against his as she slots herself around him, resting her head in the crook of his outstretched arm, and her hair falls along his shoulder, tickling. “You can’t keep doing this to people, Tony.”

“I’m not doing anything to anyone. I didn’t ask you to do this, you know. You and your boy toy decided to do the grunt work all by yourselves.”

“I’m not talking about that, Tony. I’m talking about Pepper. And Bruce.”

Tony sighs, finally rolling over so he can face Natasha, the tips of his fingers going numb from her weight and the angle. “They’re big kids, Natasha. They know what they signed up for. And so do you.”

Natasha sighs heavily and places a sloppy kiss on his forehead, smoothing his damp hair off of his face. “Yeah, yeah I do.” He gets the impression that she’s not actually talking about him anymore.

**Steve**

He was well and truly drunk before he even got into the car, but Bruce hands him some vodka and orange juice in a water bottle and he feels the earth moving under the wheels of Clint’s car, the street lights brighter than the stars in the sky, and his whole body on fire every time he thinks about what could happen in the next few years. He’s going to graduate high school, maybe even get out of New York, see the world. His friends, and his art instructors at school, think he has real talent, that he could get in any art school he wanted with no problem. That they would be, in fact, lucky to have him. It’s all sitting light on his chest for once. The future. Maybe a future that will include the sun not rising and falling with Bucky’s many hard to read moods.

Bucky’s pressed tight against him in the backseat, like normal, but he and Natasha are not attached at the mouth. She’s looking out the window, watching the street lights pass by with much less enthusiasm than Steve, and Bucky keeps stealing Steve’s water bottle, trying to catch up.

Steve falls asleep against the window before they get to Kate’s and he wakes up with Bucky’s fingers in his hair. “Naw, I’ll stay with him for a second. You guys go ahead inside.” Steve blinks a few times and Bucky’s face swims into blinding focus, his smile showing off his crooked teeth and Steve is too tired to fight the attraction, his heart feeling like lead to Bucky’s magnet.

“Hey, there, kid. You have too much to drink?” Steve murmurs and tries to get more comfortable against the door frame, but it’s digging into his back and now that the back seat isn’t full, he can stretch out. He lays his legs across Bucky’s lap and presses his head against the door handle, still uncomfortable, but at least it’s better than being curled into himself. “You want to go to the party? I can help you in, if you want. Or we can sit out here for a bit. Till you feel better.”

“Let’s sit out here,” Steve says, letting his eyes slip shut in contentment. It’s been awhile since he’s actually spent time with Bucky by himself. Not that he minds spending time with Natasha, but he and Bucky have always been, well, Steve and Bucky. Opposite sides of the same coin. Rarely seen without the other. Equally recognized bad influences on each other. It doesn’t work the same with three people, no matter how hard you try.

“Don’t pass out on me now, Stevie.” Bucky thumps a hand against his stomach hard enough to startle him into coughing. He keeps his hand on Steve’s stomach, making his shirt ride up on his hips. He’s rubbing Steve’s stomach and Steve feels warm all over, faster than the alcohol, feeling all of that heat rush up to his cheeks. But Bucky still doesn’t move his hand, rubbing circles with his broad hand on Steve’s flat stomach.

“‘Mnot passing out, I’m happy.” Steve resists the urge to clap his hand over Bucky’s. He’s pretty sure that will end all of the overly fond touching. Steve sits up for a second and decides to lay his head in Bucky’s lap instead, propping his feet against the window. Bucky laces one hand through his hair, his fingers tingly and warm against Steve’s scalp, and rests the other against his stomach again, fingers drumming lightly.

“What are you so happy about, hm?” His voice is low and fond and Steve’s gut wrenches, like it’s caught in between the gears of a machine.

Steve turns and presses his face into Bucky’s stomach, laughing lightly. “You gotta promise not to tell.”

“You never even have secrets worth the telling, Rogers, I assure you. Shoot. What’s your dirty little secret?”

Steve fists up a hand in Bucky’s sweatshirt, still laughing under his breath. Bucky’s fingers are cupping his chin, his thumb rubbing alongside his probably reddened ears. “I think me and, uh, Clint. We’ve got a thing going on. I think. I mean, neither one of us have really said anything about it, but we’re texting all the time and anytime we go to a party, we always end up, kinda, making out and stuff, so I guess--”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Bucky’s hand on his stomach stills, suddenly feeling like a dead weight pressing against him. “You and _who_?”

“Clint?” Steve twists to see Bucky’s face, a furrow between his brows. Bucky’s face is all in shadow and hard to read, but his jaw is set, hard, an indent between his upper and lower jaw on his cheek, clenched. “I mean, it’s not like. It's just a thing. We’re not going to Homecoming together or anything,” he adds as an afterthought, thinking it’ll make Bucky laugh, but that indent gets wider, his jaw tighter, his face even harder to read.

“Is he fucking you?” Steve barely recognizes his voice. It’s low and harsh and guttural and it’s like a knife to the back. His hand tightens in Steve’s hair, nearly pulling, but Steve doesn’t move out of his lap, shifting around uncomfortably.

“I--no. I mean, we’ve talked about it, but it’s not like there’s a timetable or anything. What does that matter? I thought… Well, never mind. Obviously you’re not cool with it, I won’t talk about it.” Steve tries to sit up, but Bucky pushes him back down with the hand on his chest, letting out a low growl in his throat. “Fuck, Bucky, let me up. I’m too drunk for this.”

“Are you in love with him?” Steve grabs at Bucky’s wrist, trying to pull him off, but Bucky presses down harder, hard enough to force a cough out of Steve again. “Answer the question, Steve.”

“It’s none of your _fucking_ \--” He pushes hard on Bucky’s forearm, finally dislodging his hand, and he scrambles to the other end of the car, folding into himself. “Business. It’s none of your fucking business.”

“Steve.” Bucky reaches out to him, but Steve opens the door, falls backward out of the car into the street, scraping his elbows up on the curb. “ _Steve_ , you fucking idiot.”

“I’m not an idiot.” He stands up on jelly legs, feeling tears starting to well at the corners of his eyes. He has the dignity to ignore them and the spots of blood welling up on his elbows. “ _You’re_ the idiot. I told you something in confidence, because you’re my best friend, and you start playing the meanest game of twenty questions--”

“Hey, wait no. This isn’t about me. You’re the one fooling around with Clint fucking Barton.” Bucky’s half in and half out of the car, his arm resting against the open door.

“And what’s the problem with that? He’s my friend. Is it a gay thing? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure I told you a long time ago that I was into dudes--”

“No, it’s not a--gay thing. It’s a Clint Barton thing. You couldn’t have picked _anyone_ else? It’s not like he has the best track record for being a decent guy to date, Steve.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s not exactly a line of gentlemen suitors knocking down my door.”

“So you’re going to fuck the first guy that’s nice enough to shove his tongue down your throat?” Steve turns around too fast, trying to get away, but the tears he won’t let fall are starting to cloud his vision and he trips on a depression in the lawn, sprawling face first against the grass. He gets up to his knees and starts crawling towards the house, but he hears Bucky’s footsteps behind him. “Steve, stop. You look fucking ridiculous, let me help you.”

Steve tries to make himself as heavy as a rock, not helping Bucky lift him at all, so Bucky sinks onto the lawn, too, resigned. “Fuck, Steve. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean all that stuff. I know you’ve got--well, not good judgment, but better than I give you credit for. It’s my job to look out for you, though, yeah? It’s my job.” 

The automatic sprinklers come on, the perfect coda to the perfect night. At least Bucky actually laughs with him this time, though.

****

Act III

**Bruce**

It’s been two weeks. Two weeks of moping around and waiting for an apology that’s obviously not coming. He begged off Kate’s party because of midterms, but he can’t keep using exams as an excuse to blow his friends off, especially with his history. He returns Natasha’s texts, at least, if not her calls, making no false pretenses about his mental state or his anger with Tony. She tells him what she suspects, about the drugs, but she has no idea where he’s getting them. 

He uses his meal plan to buy a sandwich wrap from one of the mini-grocery stores in the student center and sits on the bench, watching a couple of guys toss a Frisbee around, their feet crunching on all of the leaves on the lawn. He crosses his legs on the bench and decides to suck it up and call Tony himself as his passive aggressive silence obviously hasn’t left an impression. Maybe just being plain old aggressive would.

“Bruce!” He hears something clatter ominously, the line crackling from the volume. He holds the phone out from his ear until he hears Tony’s breathy voice more clearly. “Sorry, I was repairing Dum-E. Obviously still a few wires crossed. What’s up? What can I do for you?”

Bruce sighs, squeezing the bridge of his nose. He should have rehearsed this conversation before he was neck deep in it, but it's too late. “I wanted to talk to you about that night, a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t really remember a whole lot, so, I mean--” Tony puts him back on speaker phone, probably going up the stairs and out of his workroom. If it could really be called that. It was more a collection of odd parts of machinery and half-finished robots that he clearly had no intention of ever making useful. “What specifically do you want to talk about?”

“Well, first of all, what were you on?”

Tony’s laugh crackles over the line. “I guess saying like half of a bottle of Jack isn’t going to cut it this time?”

“Look, if you’re going to treat it like a joke, that’s fine, I’ll hang up and you can--”

“No, no, Bruce, I’m sorry.” Tony’s voice is back, close to his ear, out of breath and desperate. “It was crystal meth. I’ve been doing crystal meth.”

“What the fuck, Tony? Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“No, I--it was an accident, that night. I shouldn’t have been drinking, too, I made a bad decision, it’s over now, though, okay? I won’t be that stupid again.”

“You mean you’re not using that shit again?” No response. He can tell by his breathing that Tony is still on the line, though. “Tony. Right?”

“That’s not exactly--I’m going to cut back. Less partying, more drinking lots of water, exercise, that sort of stuff. Creative outlets.”

“Tony.”

“I don’t have a problem, okay? Not in the traditional sense of the word. It’s fun, that’s all. Just a bit of fun. I’ve got it under control.”

“Tony, I almost watched you die. Don’t feed me this bullshit.”

Tony’s voice grows quieter, colder. “And what exactly did you expect out of this conversation, Bruce? An apology? A promise that I care more about you than the drugs? A pledge of undying love?” Bruce feels all the acid from his stomach rise up into his mouth. He’s not going to be eating that sandwich wrap anytime soon. “Come on, Bruce, you know me better than that. What do you really want to know? If I remember kissing you? I do. I remember it pretty well. Not the best kiss I’ve ever had, but pretty good. Do you want to know if I would do it sober? Probably not. I mean, you were good, but not that good. But hey, bonus for you. If I don’t stop using crystal, maybe you’ll even get to fuck me like you’ve always wanted.”

Bruce slams his phone down on the concrete underneath the bench, hearing his screen break. He steps on it hard enough to get the metal parts to grind together, spilling out on the concrete. The boys playing Frisbee stop to look at him, mouths open, Frisbee forgotten on the grass between them. “I’ve got insurance,” he yells at them, throwing his laptop bag over his shoulder. He leaves his sandwich wrap on the bench.

**Thor**

Jane’s obsession with Homecoming is somewhat disconcerting. Tony and Pepper have won, no contest, all four years they’ve attended high school and there’s no one attending the dance that thinks that this year will be any different, but Jane insists that he wear a blue bow tie to match her dress and that they don’t ride with Clint as being seen in his falling apart Malibu will completely ruin their chances. She also insists that he not pre-game too hard before the event itself, claiming that his intoxication has been a big factor in their loss in years past. He doesn’t argue, but he’s desperately jealous watching Clint, Kate, Steve, Natasha, and Bucky pull up in the Malibu, so drunk none of them can really stand on their own.

Steve claps him on the back when he finally makes it up the steps to the entrance of the school, the alcohol showing in the coloring of his cheeks. “Great game today, man. Best Homecoming game in years. Any college is going to be so lucky to have you, man. Maybe you should just go straight to pro-ball.” Thor offers Steve his arm and Steve takes it, laughing. Clint and Kate trail behind them, both trying to fall out of step with the other so they don’t look like they’re passing through the double doors and into the dance together.

Thor straightens the collar of Steve’s pressed shirt, leaving his hands on his shoulders. Steve smiles up at him, one of his eyebrows raised. “You all right, Steve?”

He’s got Loki’s words echoing in the back of his head. He hasn’t seen Steve and Clint alone together and their interactions haven’t seen particularly strained or different or out of the ordinary. Nothing that would suggest to him that what Loki had said, any of it, was true, but he can’t get the idea that there was something Steve wasn’t telling him--or any of them--out of his head.

“Yeah, I’m good. You worried about me going stag or something?” He laughs, shaking Thor’s hands off of his shoulders. “It’s not exactly a new development or anything.” He catches Steve’s cursory glance to Bucky and Natasha, who have already graced the dance floor with their presence. They would probably be the only real competition that Tony and Pepper had, but Thor still doubts there will be any usurping.

“Don’t you and Bucky usually go to these things together? It is your first year third wheeling it.”

“Ninth wheeling it, actually,” Steve points out with a grimace. “But I swear, I’m good. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t want to be here.” Thor offers Steve his arm again and he takes it, shaking his head again, as they make their way over to the empty space around Bucky and Natasha. It’s a slow song and Thor laughs at how easily Steve slings his arms across his shoulders, peering up at him expectantly. “Your date won’t get jealous?”

Jane is jumping up and down with Darcy Lewis, excited about something on Darcy’s phone. Thor plants his hands firmly on Steve’s waist, laughing lightly as Steve’s fingers lace together at the base of his neck. “You got much experience following? I don’t know how to do anything but lead.”

As it turns out, Steve does. He’s an excellent dancing partner, following Thor’s steps easily. He rests his head against Thor’s chest when the song is over, laughing loud enough to be heard over the DJ’s incoherent mumbling into the speakers.

“You better go catch up with your date. Thank you, though.” He squeezes Thor into a tight hug before pushing him off the dance floor. Thor gives him a mock bow and Steve blows a kiss at him, which he pretends to catch graciously. He wraps his arms around Jane from behind, planting a kiss on top of her head, watching Steve make his way over to Clint, who’s pouting over near the bleachers, a Dixie cup of punch in his hand. Clint’s whole face lights up when he sees Steve and Thor tries to ignore the nagging feeling that maybe Loki was right about them and what that implies for the rest of his generalizations.

He forgets about them, though, when Jane drags him out onto the dance floor, standing on the tips of her toes to press their mouths together in the middle of the dance floor. “You know I don’t really care about winning Homecoming Queen, right?” she asks, wrapping her arms tight around his waist, placing her chin in the middle of his chest so she can beam up at him, the flashing police lights decorating the edge of the dance floor making her hair flash red blue white over and over again. “I just wanted to be here with you.”

He heads to the bathroom after about seven songs, his legs already starting to feel stiff from the long game and all the dancing, his shirt sticking to his back with sweat. He’s already shed his jacket, but he loosens the bow tie, hoping to get a bit more air. He pushes open the swinging door, smoothing his damp hair back from his forehead, not recognizing the voices until too late.

Tony Stark is sitting up on the sink, one foot pressed against the wall, his head thrown back against the mirror. Loki is pressed between his legs, a tube of white powder pressed up against his nose. Thor practically sees red, knocking Loki aside to grab Tony by the collar, bodily lifting him off of the sink and slamming him back against the mirror hard enough that his head bounces. Tony’s pupils are blown wide and he’s gritting his teeth, a smear of blood left behind on the mirror. He grabs at Thor’s hands, digging his fingernails in, but Thor doesn’t loosen his grip, getting his face inches from Tony’s own. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snarls, a couple of drops of spittle hitting Tony’s cheek. Tony flinches. “ _Answer_ me. What the fuck do you think you’re doing with my _fourteen year old brother_?”

He can feel Loki’s hands clawing at his shoulder, but he shrugs him off, knocking him back a couple of steps. “Thor, stop it! It’s not Tony’s fault! Let him go.”

He doesn’t. “Stark, I swear to God, if you’ve been selling my brother drugs, I’ll fucking kill you.”

“And ruin your brilliant college football career? I doubt it,” Tony sneers, his front teeth bloody. He’d bit his tongue. Thor rattles him against the mirror again and Tony throws his hands up hastily. “Okay, okay, big guy, calm down. It’s not what it looks like, okay, trust me. And you probably don’t really want an explanation right now. So let’s just let cooler heads prevail and when everyone feels less homicidal, we’ll talk about it like grown ups, okay?”

Thor lets him go, smoothing the collar of his shirt against his neck, smiling genially, but he can tell Tony doesn’t buy it. “No, Stark. I think we should talk about it now. Is this what you’ve been doing with my brother all this time?”

“Uh, strictly speaking, yes. But I’m telling you, it’s not what you think. No one’s taking advantage of anyone or anything untoward. Just a little crystal meth between friends. Nothing serious.”

“You’ve been selling crystal meth to my _brother_?” Thor grabs at Tony’s collar again, but before he can get him off of the ground, Loki gets in between them, pushing hard on Thor’s chest, even though it won’t have any affect.

“Thor, fucking stop. I’ve been selling it to Tony. And a couple of guys on the football team. Okay? Will you stop?”

Thor takes a step back, pushing out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Tony sinks to the floor, cradling his head between his hands and Loki’s staring him straight in the eye, chin held up defiantly. His eyes are blown as wide as Tony’s, pupils so wide there’s almost no blue left in them. “I told you. I told you you had no idea what was going on with your friends.”

Thor punches the door on one of the stalls hard enough to break one of the screws loose, the door hanging on by only one hinge. He almost kicks the rest of it down, but his hand is throbbing and he can’t think straight. “Were either one of you going to bother telling me?”

“It’s none of your business,” Loki snarls. “My life is none of your business.”

“It is when you’re doing crystal meth in the school fucking bathroom!” Thor’s hand is turning dark around the knuckles already, a bad punch, so he heads over to the sink. Both Tony and Loki flinch away. He runs cold water over his knuckles, but all it does it sting. “If I see the two of you together again, I swear to God, I’ll kill you both. Don’t come to my house. Don’t invite him to any of your fucking parties. Don’t even fucking text him. Do you understand me?”

Tony nods, meekly, and Loki knows better than to argue. Thor doesn’t trust either one of them to keep their promise, but he hopes they know him well enough to realize he intends to keep his. He makes Jane take him home so he can put ice on his hand. He doesn’t tell her what happened. He doesn’t tell anyone.

**Steve**

He spends most of his free period at school in the basement that houses all the fine arts rooms, in the big, whitewashed studio where most of the art classes are held. Steve’s taken almost all of them, only leaving sculpture (his least favorite art medium) and Painting 4 for his senior year. He’s in AP Studio this year, working on things that he will ultimately add to his portfolio to submit to art schools. He’s sort of resigned himself to the fact that he might not be able to afford actually going to art school, or that his mother's health might take a sharper decline, so he’s trying to learn as much as he can while he’s receiving a free public education.

He sits on one of the bar stools that serve as chairs, idly sketching. Part of AP Studio was having a “professional” sketch book, something that could be board reviewed and analyzed, even if they were just experiments in style. They had to represent something tied to a greater whole. He's sketching Clint’s face from memory, from the night on the pool deck. He remembered him half in shadow, so that’s how he draws him, almost as if he was a comic book figure, smudging his shading to obscure parts and harden others, exaggerating the line in his jaw and the light catching in his eyes. He draws the line of his body, practically sunken into the pool chair, but leaves the taut quality that Clint always had, as if he was ready to spring up at any moment. He draws the joint between his fingers and hopes to give the smoke an airy, light, real feeling that his idealized interpretation of Clint didn’t have, this noir superhero version that fit well in his sketch book, but also his memory of that night.

He is too wrapped up in finishing his shading to hear the screech of another stool being pulled back on the concrete. He does hear the light laugh, though, and turns face-to-face with his noir hero, smiling enigmatically at Steve’s work. Steve barely resists the urge to snap his sketch book closed defensively, but settles for wiping his charcoal coated fingers on his pants and returning Clint’s smile with only the tinge of a blush.

“It’s me,” Clint says, his voice barely more than a whisper. There’s no one but the two of them in the studio, but it still feels strangely public and raw.

“Yeah, I was just. Messing around. I drew some others, if you wanna see.” Steve flicks through his sketch book and shows Clint a drawing he’d done at the beginning of the summer, of him leaning over the front seat of his car with a wide smile on his face. The day after the air conditioner had broken, actually. Clint stares at it for a couple of seconds, rubbing his thumb along the bottom of the page, his mouth twitching.

“That’s really good, you know, Steve.” His voice sounds distant and his eyes are hard to read, taking in all the detail, but with some discomfort. Steve is aware that it can be invasive, his figure studies, so he generally tries not to show them to his friends, but there’s a real softness in Clint’s expression, an appreciation, an intimacy between Clint himself and the Clint that Steve’s managed to put on the page.

“Thanks.” He flips to a double page drawing of Clint sleeping on his arms at Tony’s, the crease between the pages serving as the divide between his shirt and his pants. He’d paid careful attention to the texture of Clint’s clothes for that sketch, but he’d also done a pretty good rendering of the trail of light hair exposed on the patch of stomach his clothes didn’t cover. It takes everything in his power not to turn even more red. “And there’s this one... “ He’d drawn it from a photograph he’d seen of Kate and Clint at Homecoming. Clint had a huge scratch on his nose that night, so he’d been wearing medical tape across the bridge of his nose and had looked adorably grumpy and Kate looked like his cheery sidekick, her arm delicately looped through his. He’d done this one in color, giving Clint a light purple tie to match Kate's dress, a tie he hadn’t actually worn.

“These are incredible, Steve.” And because he’d been watching Clint’s face so closely, he hadn’t noticed that Clint’s hand had snaked it’s way up to his thigh, squeezing lightly and encouragingly. And intimately. Steve feels like he should probably politely move his hand away, but there’s a warm fire starting in the pit of his stomach and spreading fast. “I think…” Clint flicks back to the sketch Steve had just been working on, his enigmatic smile returning. “I think I like this one the best, though. I look like a superhero.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I was going for.” Steve’s voice sounds stretched thin and he can feel the warmth from his face migrating to other areas and he’s still got two hours left of school, it’s probably not a good idea to get this worked up, but he can’t take his eyes off of Clint’s mouth. He’s never kissed him sober.

“Is that really what you think of me?” Clint’s hand is moving up and down now, sending warm pinpricks up Steve’s spine. He opens his mouth, planning on telling Clint to stop, but nothing comes out and then Clint’s hand is cupping him through his jeans and his tongue is tangling with Steve’s, his other hand tight in Steve’s hair, tugging at the root so he can lick his way up into Steve’s mouth.

Clint pulls away, his eyes shining, searching Steve’s face with as much wonder as he’d had when he looked at the sketches. He rubs his thumb along Steve’s bottom lip, wiping away some of the wetness before pressing a quick peck to the corner of his mouth. “You know, Steve,” his voice is low, quiet, engineered to make Steve lean forward on his stool. “Even before we started doing the fooling around thing, I always thought, I don’t know, that when I was around you, I wanted to be better. That I _could_ be better. That I could go for bigger and better things than what people have told me all my life. That if I could be half the man you are, half the man you see when you look at me, I’d be in good shape.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say, so he kisses him, hard, sending both of them toppling off of their stools.

**Tony**

It’s kind of exciting, the sneaking in windows in the dead of night thing. Loki pulls him up by the back of his sweatshirt and he half falls into the room, graceful as ever. “Who the fuck owns a split level these days?” Tony huffs, brushing stray leaves off of his clothes. Loki’s eyes are bright, almost like diamonds reflecting light, and Tony can’t really say he regrets much of the last three months.

“I told you I could come to yours, you’re the one who insisted that secrecy means going all black ops and climbing through windows. Works better in theory, doesn’t it?” Loki crosses the room and sits at his desk chair, propping his legs up on the end of his bed. He’s already high, Tony can tell. His entire body feels like a live wire, humming around Loki in anticipation. That only happens when Loki’s already high.

“I’m doing my best to protect myself from your murderous brother. There’s a better chance he finds out you’re seeing me than that I’m seeing you.”

“Yeah, until he comes home and hears your voice in my bedroom.”

“Will you stop poking holes in my plan? I had a plan. I executed that plan. That’s what’s important here.” He sprawls out in Loki’s bed, huffing again, crossing his arms over his chest. “What are the chances your brother does kill me if he comes home?”

“How fast can you run?”

“Scaling that little ivy thing is not as easy as it looks. Maybe I’ll have a tactical advantage.” He shrugs out of his sweatshirt, feeling warm under the measured scrutiny of Loki’s diamond blue eyes.

“Hmm,” Loki considers. “Until I get you blasted out of your mind.” His smile is way too knowing for a fourteen year old and it’s like a missile straight to Tony’s groin. This is not going to end well. He shifts around on the bed, trying to get himself comfortable and back on even footing. No easy task.

“You ever fuck on crystal?” Tony asks, trying to keep his voice light, but his mouth is dry and he trips over the words, sounding much more earnest than he'd meant to.

“Why are you asking?” The smug look on Loki’s face says he knows exactly why Tony’s asking. It doesn’t indicate whether that’s on the table or not, though.

“Because all of the people I know who do this shit are in this room and I feel like it’s something I should have some information about.”

“Would you like a demonstration?” Loki’s standing and his black jeans look like they’re practically painted on. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his little vial and then his weight is on the bed, making Tony sink into him, and then he’s sitting astride Tony’s lap. Tony puts his hands on Loki’s thighs, scraping his nails a little against the denim to make sure that Loki’s actually wearing clothes, and Loki kisses him, tasting like his crystal drip, but also something sweet, almost like sugar. Tony runs his hands up to Loki’s slim waist, his hands big enough to practically wrap around Loki, and then Loki pulls away, smug as ever, his eyes flashing even brighter. Tony cranes up, trying to catch his lips again, but Loki pushes him back, shaking his head and dangling the vial in front of his nose. “Bump first. Then more.”

It’s started to feel like his body returns to equilibrium when he’s high. Like he’s working on all levels, the prime version of himself. It feels heavy this time, though, different, as much as it charges him up, rushing through his body like a cold blast of ice water, it’s also pinning him down, muddling everything up, and pulling him taut rather than loosening him up. Loki’s weight on his lap is nothing and he scoops him around the waist, turning him flat on his back. Loki laughs lightly, but it feels far away. It feels like it doesn’t matter. Tony kisses him, hard enough to bruise, trying to take all of the crystal out of Loki’s body, too. Swallow it all up. Make any of this feel better.

“Wait.” Loki’s hand is practically down the front of Tony’s pants, his fingers ice cold against Tony’s stomach. “Are you sure this isn’t statutory rape?”

Loki’s hand strays down the front of his pants and Tony doesn’t really care anymore.

**Natasha**

James looks vulnerable and out of place in her bed, his arm shielding his eyes from the light reflecting through the white curtains of her canopy bed. Her room belongs to a twelve year old girl, but she’s never felt any need to update it. The softness and comfort of a little girl’s room has served as a good escape from the hardness and uneasiness constantly rattling around inside her. She sinks back onto the bed and hooks her arm around James, fitting easily into the curve of his body because his knees are drawn up a little. He groans and presses his face into the pillow, turning over more so she can slot herself around him more comfortably, curving his back into her. She plays idly with the trail of hair on his stomach, ignoring, for the moment, his interest in what she’s doing.

“This is the first time you let me spend the night over here,” his voice creeks, morning raw.

“Noticed that, did you?” She presses a kiss to the back of his neck, laughing when he flinches away from the feeling of her hair dragging on his bare skin. He turns around in her arms to press his forehead against hers and lets his eyes slip shut again, humming contently. “And did you find everything to your satisfaction, sir?”

He chuckles, opening his eyes just a crack so he can reach up and run his thumb idly along her jaw, pushing her hair away from her face. “The happy ending massage was pretty good, I gotta say. Might recommend it to a couple of friends.” He laughs hard enough to wheeze when she punches him square in the chest. He moves his hands down to her waist, playing with the hem of the t-shirt she’s wearing. “Maybe I should return the favor, hmm?”

He flips up the covers, but Natasha grabs his head and pulls him back up for a kiss, laughing at the frown on his face when she pulls away. “You being here with me is returning the favor, okay?”

“Okay, but I think you’re really missing out.” He runs his tongue over his bottom lip, raising one of his eyebrows, but Natasha thumps his chest with a closed fist and he stops, settling back against the pillows. “Well, if we’re going to be slumming it like a couple of girlfriends all morning, can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.” She opens her hand on his chest, her fingers cold against his warmth.

“Why did you and Clint really break up? When it happened, everyone was such good friends with both of you, it didn’t seem like a good idea to force the issue, but you’re both moving on now, so--”

“Moving on? You mean him and Kate?”

James winces, catching her wrist to stop her hand from straying further down his chest. He puts her hand on the space between them in the bed and props himself up higher on the pillows. “It’s not exactly my business to tell anyone, I don’t think. I mean, I wasn’t sworn to secrecy or anything, but it feels kind of--it’s not mine to tell. You can ask him, Clint, I mean, I’m sure he’ll tell you, I don’t think they’re hiding it.” His face always gets red and hot when he’s flustered. Natasha runs her cool fingers over his cheeks, hoping to be both reassuring and cool him down, but he turns away from her touch.

“Steve.” Not a question. The only person who’s confidence James wouldn’t betray to her is Steve’s.

He winces again, shaking his head. “Does anything get passed you?”

“Not very much, but you were being pretty obvious,” she confesses, trying to close both the physical and emotional space between them. She presses herself flat against his chest, her shirt riding up so that their skin rubs together. He doesn’t shrink away this time. She slings her arm around his waist again, pressing her face into the crook of his neck. “Is that why you’re asking me about Clint? To see how he’ll treat Steve?”

“I mean, sort of. There has to be something about him, otherwise both of you wouldn’t--”

“Are you asking me if he has something you don’t?” She presses her lips against James’s collarbone, sucking lightly, trying to be both a distraction and a comfort. All things at once. All things to all people.

“No, not exactly.” He tugs on her hair so she’ll lift her face. “It’s not a jealousy thing. It’s just a--curiosity. I want to know what you saw in him and what to look for if things start going south for Steve.”

“You know he doesn’t need you to fight his battles for him anymore, right?”

He shifts uncomfortably in her arms, huffing out a quick breath that blows her bangs into her face. “Will you stop putting me on trial for this? He’s my best friend and you’re the only other person I know who’s been with the dude, that’s all this is, okay?”

She loosens her grip on his waist, digging her nails into the small of his back hard enough to make him hiss. “Clint and I broke up because I was scared. He got too close. That’s it.”

“What does that mean for us, then?” She tries not to read too much into his voice, but he sounds--hurt. By the implication that she hasn’t run away from James because she isn’t as close to him as she was (is) to Clint, or that she encompassed such a major chapter in her young life into a few choppy sentences and didn’t feel the need to elaborate.

But she didn’t. Clint is an orphan, too. He’s the only one who ever understood the uneasiness she felt in her own home, the fear that everything would be suddenly ripped out from underneath her. It was why she didn’t change her room--in case it was the last time she ever had a chance to see it. You only have to pack up everything you own in the dead of night once to fear it for the rest of your life. Clint understood that. She prays James never will.

“It doesn’t mean anything. This is totally different. I’d never let anyone in before Clint. I was afraid of losing people. I’ve lost a lot of people and my life has never been--stable. Or it never felt that way, at least. I was ten when I came over here from Russia. That’s old enough to remember what my life was like before. Clint, he touched a nerve. We had--similar upbringings. I wasn’t ready to deal with that, that kind of intimacy. Being that raw. So I ran away and he had to deal with it. It doesn’t have anything to do with me and you and it doesn’t have anything to do with him and Steve.”

“So are you implying that you’re letting me in or you’re shutting me out?”

It’s her turn to shift uncomfortably. She resists the urge to turn her back to him and rests her head against his chest instead, listens to his heartbeat for a couple of seconds, trying to ground her answer around him. She’s tempted to tell him whatever he wants to hear, but she can tell that he wants honesty. Easier done than said. “Bit of both? You’ve broken down enough of my walls, James, trust me when I say that.”

He presses a kiss to the top of her head. “I trust you.”

That’s as close to “I love you” as she’s going to let him get.

**Clint**

“I think I’m ready.” Steve has his thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his khakis and he’s not making eye contact, his cheeks flaming pink, and Clint knows perfectly well what he’s saying, but they’re in the middle of Kate’s living room and it’s only ten and neither one of them is particularly drunk and it feels off-balance and odd, even if the idea does make his stomach jump up into his chest.

“Ready for… what?” Clint rubs his hand on the back of his neck, squeezing his Solo cup between his hands tightly enough to make the beer froth up again.

“Uh… You know.” Steve’s face is scarlet when he finally meets his eyes and _fuck_ , does Clint ever know. Steve’s eyes are practically blown open, startlingly blue, and Clint shakes his head to stop himself from drowning.

“Right. Uh. Are you sure? I mean, we don’t have to. If you just wanna go somewhere and make out for an hour or seven, that’s fine with me, too.”

Steve grabs him by the front of his shirt, a small smile playing on his face despite the fact that it’s still beat red, and pulls him into the closest bathroom, a big tiled expanse with a two-person marble sink and a huge, intimidating claw foot tub. Clint sits down precariously on the edge of the tub and pulls Steve towards him, wrapping his arms around his hips. “So what do you want to do, then?” Steve pulls a face and starts pushing at Clint’s hands, but Clint squeezes him tighter, almost knocking both of them off balance. “I don’t think you’re ready to do it if you can’t talk about it, Steve.”

“Shut up.” Steve leans down to kiss him and Clint lets him, long enough to tug on his lower lip with his teeth, but then he pulls away, nearly falling in the bathtub again. Maybe he should have thought this one through more. “Clint, come on, I don’t know. I want to touch you and I want you to touch me and ultimately it’ll result in great satisfaction for both of us, okay? Is that good enough?” Clint laughs, pressing his face into Steve’s chest. Steve runs his fingers through Clint’s hair, scratching at his scalp. “What do _you_ want to do? I’ll, uh, I’ll do anything you want to.”

Clint rests his chin on Steve’s chest so he can look up at him. He’s not blushing. Clint’s stomach drops back down and he’s suddenly somehow both hot all over and cold enough to shiver. “ _Anything_ I want?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

Clint lets him go and slides down into the bathtub. He strips off his own shirt and laughs at Steve’s little intake of breath. Clint runs his fingers over his nipples, both pierced, and Steve’s eyes are wide (it would be comical if it wasn’t so fucking hot), and then Steve’s stripping off his own shirt and climbing in the bathtub with him, slotting himself between Clint’s open legs. He gets his mouth on Clint’s nipples, tonguing at the barbell, before sliding up his neck to properly catch his lips, unable to keep his hands off Clint’s metal.

“You like those, huh?” Clint asks, his voice husky and stretched thin, and Steve only murmurs, mouth busy licking and sucking his way back to Clint’s nipple. “Fuck, Steve, that feels so good.” He grabs Steve by the hair and gently pulls him back up towards his mouth, lifting his chest to rub, raw from all of Steve’s overworking, against Steve. “You hard?” Clint asks, lips against Steve’s neck. He slides his hand between them, groaning when he gets his hands on the tented front of Steve’s pants. “Want me to help you out with that one, buddy?” He pops the button and starts sliding the zipper down and Steve sighs in relief against his neck. Clint tucks his fingers under the waistband of Steve’s shorts, groaning almost louder than Steve himself when he wraps his hand around Steve’s dick. “You’re bigger than you look, boy wonder.” Steve’s teeth are worrying at his shoulder and he slides his hand up and down slowly, rubbing his thumb in slow circles over the head of Steve’s dick. “That feel good?” Steve’s groaning, his hips jumping up into Clint’s fist. “You know what would feel even better? My mouth on that dick. Wanna fuck my mouth, Steve?” Steve makes a sound somewhere between a moan and a whimper when Clint pulls his hands out of Steve’s shorts, but he gets his hands on Steve’s waist and flips them around in the bathtub, his knee pressed tight between Steve’s legs to keep them open.

There’s a wet circle staining Steve’s ridiculous American flag boxer briefs and Clint can’t help himself. He licks a line over the outline of Steve’s dick in his underwear and Steve’s hands are all over his face, trying to find an appropriate place to hold. Steve’s shoes scrape on the porcelain of the bathtub as he kicks his legs out, desperate for any sort of purchase. Clint takes him out, groaning again, and then wraps his lips around the head of Steve’s dick, watching his face closely. He pulls off to tell him how hot he looks, all flushed and pink all over and so horny he can barely keep still, and Steve whines at him, chewing all the skin off of his bottom lip, making it even more red and raw, his eyes half-lidded and all eyelash. Clint wraps a hand around the base of Steve’s dick and starts licking up and down the shaft, groaning louder than Steve again. Steve’s making soft sounds, sharp, halted intakes of breath, his hands curling and uncurling in Clint’s hair like he’s afraid he’ll hurt him. “It’s good, huh? Feels good?”

“Hey, Clint?” He flicks his eyes up, moving his hand along Steve’s dick. Steve’s hips jump, but his face is serious, despite being still flushed from cheek to cheek. “You think maybe you could put your money where your mouth is and shut up?”

Clint laughs and Steve’s hips jerk up again in his hand. “Getting sassy, Rogers.” But he does as he’s told, wrapping his lips around Steve’s dick and swallowing around him until he meets his own fingers. Steve’s fingers tighten in his hair, actually pulling for once, and Clint groans around him, Steve’s hips jerking up and making him gag. He pulls off half an inch before lowering back down without mercy and Steve’s eyes are rolling back in his head. He bobs his head up and down fast enough that Steve’s hips are practically sputtering to keep up, Steve pushing all of his air out between his teeth in a low hiss, murmuring Clint’s name incoherently. It’s sloppy, wet, just the way Clint himself likes it, and he can tell by the way Steve’s feet keep dragging all along the bathtub, his body taut like a bowstring under Clint’s hands, that he’s close. Steve tries to warn Clint, but he’s adorably overwhelmed and desperate, practically clawing at Clint’s scalp, and he comes hard, hitting his head on one of the gold plated taps and dousing himself in bath water. Clint swallows what he can, sucking and licking and lapping until Steve’s soft again. Steve’s trying to buck his way up, turn off the water, get Clint off of his still tender dick, and there are tears welling up at the corners of his eyes, his whole body shivering from the force of his orgasm and the temperature of the water.

Steve sits up, soaking wet from the waist up, and kisses him with a rookie disregard for the fact that Clint had just swallowed, but to his credit, he doesn’t pull a face and Clint does his best to not actually snowball him, keep the taste to himself. “Now what about you?” Steve asks, still shaking against Clint.

Clint smoothes Steve’s wet hair against his head and pushes the heel of his hand over himself, groaning. “Think you can return the favor?”

Steve’s hands shake, but he pushes Clint flat on his back, in the dry part of the bathtub and tugs his sweatpants and underwear down his thighs. Steve’s breath is hot on his inner thigh and Clint has to remind himself to keep still, that not everyone likes gagging until their eyes water, and it’s Steve’s first time and all of that stuff, but it’s hard when he’s staring down at those long eyelashes and that thick, red bottom lip. Steve Rogers was kinda made for giving blow jobs, in his estimation. “Got any tips?” Steve asks, kissing the inside of both of Clint’s thighs like he’s ignoring the fact that Clint is so hard, his dick is pretty much sticking to his stomach.

“Think you’ll do just fine, boy wonder.”

It had to be in at least the top ten blow jobs of all time. If there was a list like that. Maybe top five.

****

Act IV

**Bruce**

It’s not that he stopped going to class on purpose, or consciously even. It’s that his bed is indescribably comfortable and eleven in the morning seems like a patently ridiculous time to have to go to class. And if he misses one class, what’s the harm in missing the rest of them? What’s the use of getting out of bed and going to the dining hall when there’s a half a bag of Doritos on the desk under his bed? He doesn’t even bother to plug his brand new phone in anymore, either, letting it die so he doesn’t have to respond to his friend’s increasingly desperate texts. Hank is spending more and more time out of the room, as if afraid that if he’s in the room he’ll be an accomplice to Bruce’s self-destruction. He’s got a girlfriend, Janet, and he spends most nights in her dorm room. A sure sign that if Bruce doesn’t fix this, he’s going to lose everything. But fixing it would require moving and he’s not really down with that part of the plan.

He hears his door swing open and he groans, rolling over, expecting it to be Hank, misguidedly inviting him to the dining hall to spend some time with Janet and himself while they politely ignore that he hasn’t showered or changed out of the same pair of pajamas in over a week. He can’t really see who it is from his bed, so he groans again and lays back, waiting. He hears the creaking of someone climbing up the ladder of his lofted bed. It’s Natasha. She settles on the end of his bed, her eyes as impossible to read as ever.

“I’m not really in the mood for company,” he groans again, rolling over on his side, shielding his eyes with his arm.

“Good, ‘cause I’m not here to be your company. I’m here to help you shower and eat and get out of bed before you lose your scholarship. I’m not going to watch you drown over him, Bruce.”

“That’s not how this works, you know.” He rolls over again, pressing his face into his pillow, feeling drained from the conversation already. “Depression is triggered, not caused by outside factors.”

“I know that, but are you really going to argue that Tony’s latest display of class A asshole isn’t what triggered your latest spiral?” She puts a hand on his back and it feels like a branding iron. He winces, but he doesn’t force her to take it off. She’s the most human contact he’s had in weeks. As exhausting and heavy as it feels, he’s loathe to push her away. He’s loathe to give up any temporary release from the hell of his own creation. “Do you want to talk first? We can talk.”

“Talk about what? There’s nothing new to talk about. This crystal thing is just another way he’s throwing it in my face that he knows I want him and I can’t have him. It’s the same old shit he’s always pulled. Stringing me along just enough that I’ll keep following him around, never here when I really need him. Maybe when the other shoe finally drops for him, whatever that is, he’ll at least admit what he’s doing and stop doing it, but I can’t really ever hope he’ll open his eyes and realize what he’s been missing all along. You know, a kid who can’t even get out of bed and follow the rules of basic hygiene. What a catch.” He rolls over and Natasha lifts her hand, placing it on his side. It doesn’t feel quite as hot anymore, now a warm comfort.

“Bruce Banner, you are the best of us and don’t you doubt that for a second. Tony is using you, you’re right, but that doesn’t mean his feelings for you aren’t genuine and that doesn’t mean everyone else’s feelings for you matter less than his. I know you don’t believe me, but it doesn’t even matter. I’m not going to sit idly by while you ruin your life. Baby steps, all right? We’re going to get you in the shower. You’re going to change into some clean pajamas. I’m going to make you some food and you’re going to eat it. Together, we can look at setting you up with a counselor here at school. It’s going to get better and it’s going to get easier and I’m going to be with you, no matter what.”

The shower feels like it’s scraping his skin off, but he stays under, knowing Natasha is on the other side of the curtain. His new pair of pajamas feel like they’re rubbing him raw, but he feels better, crisper, less like he’s folding into himself like a crumpled piece of paper. The Kraft macaroni and cheese Natasha makes him in the dorm’s kitchen feels like a stone in his stomach, but he feels some of the exhaustion lifting off, the world returning to its original colors piece by piece. She lets him lay back down, though, once he’s eaten. Tells him they’ll look into the counselor tomorrow. She lays down next to him and wraps her arms around him, feeling like a heating pad, and tucks her chin onto his shoulder.

“You seem down, too, Natasha.”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about me.”

“Why? Because you can take care of yourself?”

“No. Well, yes, but because you have enough to worry about without adding my problems to the list.”

“Try me. Helping people makes me feel better. I like listening to your problems. They makes mine seem so small in comparison.”

She thumps him on the stomach, hard enough to make him cough. “Thanks, asshole.”

“Come on, Natasha. You’ve been so good to me. Let me be good to you.”

“It’s James. He’s using, too. Same stuff as Tony, I’m pretty sure. Probably even getting it from the same place. I haven’t confronted him about it, and it’s not as bad as Tony, but--he’s lying. And also there’s some stuff with Clint and Steve, I don’t know. He went a little nuts about it. I’m not sure who he’s really jealous of and why. I’m not sure about anything, really.”

“You don’t have any idea where they’re getting it?” He turns around in her arms, studying her face. There’s still nothing there to read. There never is.

“None. The only thing they have in common is our group of friends and I highly doubt Thor is running some kind of crystal meth ring right under our noses. I asked Clint to look into it for me, but I think he’s been busy.”

“With Steve.” Bruce tries not to laugh. As far as rebounds go, Clint could have done worse.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything. You think Bucky is the only jealous one in this scenario, though?”

“I’m not jealous. I’m worried about both of them, okay? Someone’s going to get hurt and I don’t want that for either one of them.”

“I seem to remember saying something similar to you when you started dating Clint.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I learned my lesson.” She squeezes him tighter in her arms. “Do you feel better? Hashing out my shit?”

“Mmhmm. I feel much better. Now how about we take a nap and forget about all of this for a few hours?”

“Sounds good.”

When he wakes up a few hours later, Natasha is gone. He can't even pretend to be surprised.

**Tony**

It’s not a choice, or at least not one as cut and dry as left or right. Crystal meth or fulfilling relationships with his friends. Whatever maladjusted unwillingness to communicate he has going on with Loki or the picture perfect Crest white Homecoming smiles he has with Pepper. It is becoming increasingly obvious to him that his choices do have consequences, though. Whether they’re negative or positive remains to be seen.

He has to invite half the school so his own friends will come to his party and he promises up and down to Thor that his brother will be nowhere near the holiday festivities, but neglects to mention that they’d gotten high and had sex in Tony’s bed a few short hours before anyone started arriving. He’d changed the sheets, after all. It seems tacky to bring it up now. He’d wanted what they usually have--a quaint little gift exchange, Clint getting drunk and falling asleep on his couch, Steve wearing an ugly Christmas sweater that Bucky’s mother made for him, Natasha leaving a lipstick kiss on his cheek. He got none of these things. Well, Steve is wearing the Christmas sweater, to his credit. The party raging in his penthouse was so impersonal, a keg stand affair he’d wanted no part in, but no one would ever accuse him of playing bad host.

He escapes to the roof when he feels the come down. It always starts in his teeth, a painful awareness that the last few hours when his body has felt at peak performance have actually just been an inability to feel how bone tired he is. It’s freezing, the December air harsh enough to make his ears pop when he gets off the elevator, but maybe it’ll be warmer by the covered hot tub.

Steve Rogers is sitting on one of the couches, curled into his Christmas sweater like he’d rather be anywhere else on earth. He looks at Tony with red-rimmed eyes like he was expecting someone else. Tony sits on top of the hot tub cover, sighing at how warm it actually is. He pats a spot next to him and it’s a testament to how cold it actually is that Steve takes his invitation. They are friends mostly in name only. Tony has no doubt that Steve would do most anything for him and that he probably, deep down, has some real, genuinely fond feelings for Tony, but he can’t let any of them show through his patently forced disapproval of every decision Tony makes. Tony lets him think he doesn’t know that it’s mostly stubborn bravado at this point. He’ll let Steve have his disapproval if it means he’s not alone on the roof, running away from his own party.

“What brings you all depressed and mopey to my roof?” Tony asks, tucking his legs underneath himself, resisting the urge to press himself completely against the hot tub cover. It’s like sitting on a hot spring.

“Nothing. I’m up here every year. Me and--Bucky.” And that would explain the red-rimmed eyes, although Tony knows better than to mention them, even if he does like chipping away at Steve’s self-righteous armor.

“Ah. That’s why the depressed and mopey, then. Your boy wonder has got another playmate this year.” He’d seen just how playful Natasha and Bucky were. The lock on his bedroom door had never clicked so fast. Good thing he’d changed the sheets, actually.

Steve winces, shifting away from him on the hot tub cover, his arms tightening around his chest like Tony had physically wounded him. “Don’t call him that.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to touch a nerve. I bet it’s tough losing your sidekick, that’s all I’m saying. Or maybe you were the sidekick.” Tony gives up on resisting and lays back against the hot tub cover. It’s a clear December night and he thinks he can see more stars than he’s ever been able to see in New York City, all the warm air trapped under the cover making him feel like he’s floating. A much nicer way to come down than he usually does, with a huge swig of vodka and a prayer his skin only _feels_ paper thin enough to fall off his bones. “Fuck, Steve. You gotta lay back like this. The sky is incredible.”

For once, Steve doesn’t argue. He lays back against the hot tub cover, close enough that Tony can feel the heat coming off of his body, too. He lets out a little gasp, clearly as impressed with the sky as Tony himself. “He’ll come back down to earth eventually, you know.”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a couple of minutes, maybe letting it sink in, but probably really swallowing his first impulse to attack Tony. “What about your sidekick, huh? You replaced him yet?”

“I’m still accepting applications, if you’re interested.”

“What really happened there, though? I mean, he doesn’t even come around anymore. I tried texting him a couple of times, but he told me he was busy with finals and stuff, so I let it go, but there’s something the matter there.”

Tony props himself up on an elbow. Steve flinches away, slightly, but doesn’t move away, giving Tony a measured stare through half-lidded eyes. God, he has long eyelashes. “How about this? I’ll tell you my secret if you tell me yours.”

“What are you talking about, Tony?” Defensive. So there was a secret to tell. Tony hadn’t actually been sure, he’d only been guessing. Steve has always been an easy read, everything he's feeling written right across his face, but lately, he’d been playing things pretty close to the chest, even around his precious Bucky and Bucky’s precious Natasha. A secret.

“Come, come, now, dear, everyone can tell when you’re lying. We’re going to play a game. I’ll tell you about Bruce and my deep, dark secret, if you tell me about Bucky and your deep, dark secret. All is fair in love and war.”

“Is this love or war?” Steve asks, exasperated and resigned.

“Ah, that’s for you to decide, isn’t it? Me first?” Steve nods, decidedly. “Okay. Well. Bruce is extremely, rightfully, pissed off at me because I showed up to his dorm high as a kite and caused a scene. I, uh, overdosed. And he took care of me. And instead of being appreciative and making overtures like I’d never do it again, I pretty much told him I wasn’t interested in him the way he was interested in me and that the only way he’d ever get to fuck me was if I was high. Which, admittedly, is a pretty shitty thing to say, but I think I--I don’t know, I guess I want people to treat me the way I probably deserve to be treated and he really needed to stop hanging out with me a long time ago, I guess.” Tony furrows his brow. That was definitely not what he’d intended to say. He had meant to play it his usual glib, off-hand way, and somehow ended up sounding earnest and a lot more remorseful than he had any right to be. Had to be the come down, making sentiment out of thin air. He lay back against the hot tub cover, waiting for Steve to ream him a new one. Which is probably why he’d wanted to tell Steve in the first place. He deserved a better tongue lashing than the one Natasha had given him, full of righteous indignation and moral upstanding.

“You almost overdosed?” Tony scrubs a hand down his face. Great. All he hears in Steve’s voice is concern.

“Yeah, can we not with the ‘I really care about you and if you died it would be a national tragedy’ speech? I’ve heard that one. Honestly, I expected you to be more ‘Huh, well serves you right to have no friends because you’re a generally shitty human being.’”

“Is that what you think I say about you?” It's Steve’s turn to prop himself up on his elbow. Tony shuts his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Steve’s face. He looks caught somewhere between mortified and scared for Tony before the only thing Tony can see is his eyelids. Scared _of_ Tony. That’s not how this conversation was supposed to be going.

“Does it matter? On to your secret, then.”

“Okay, but don’t think for a second we aren’t having this conversation. We’re having this conversation.” Steve lays back down next to him, sounding heavier than he actually is when he settles with a huff. “I, uh, I’ve been sleeping with Clint. For like a couple of weeks. And I told Bucky and he flipped the hell out and he won’t tell me why. He’s acting really weird about it. Well, I didn’t tell him we slept together because--well. We hadn’t. At the time. This thing, we’ve got going, it’s been--you know Kate’s party at the end of the summer? We made out at that party and we’ve been fooling around, kinda, ever since then. But I’m not sure if he’s upset because--Clint, or if there’s another reason, and I can’t get him to talk about it, so. That’s my secret.”

“Steven Grant Rogers, you lost your virginity?” Tony opens his eyes only to see how red Steve’s cheeks are. Hard to tell in the dark, but he thinks he sees a slight red tint to Steve’s ears. Matches the nose of the reindeer on his sweater.

“Yes, yes, I did, but if you tell anyone, I swear to God--”

“Wait, wait, wait. Clint’s good enough to fuck but not good enough to take to prom? You’re not shouting it from the roof tops?”

“No, I’m telling you to shut up about it on a rooftop. And who said anything about prom? And when did this become about my shitty behavior? I’m not being shitty. Bucky doesn’t like him!”

“Does Bucky take this much consideration for your feelings when he fucks Natasha? I wonder.”

“It’s not about that. He’s my best friend. If he disapproves, there’s got to be a reason, so I can’t until I know why.” Steve sticks his bottom lip out, his resolve face. His no arguments face.

Tony has never been really good at not arguing. “If his disapproval is enough to stop you from holding hands in public, maybe you should stop crossing swords in private, too, Rogers.”

“Maybe you should have just told Bruce he was outgrowing you instead of nearly dying and not apologizing for it.”

“Touché. So, now that our secrets are out, what do you propose we do?”

Steve, surprisingly, fits himself around Tony. He feels a bit like one of those hot water heating pads they give you at the hospital when your body temperature is too low. The sweater’s texture is a bit off putting, too thick for his taste, too much like an afghan, but Steve is warm and curled tight against him and the sky is the best he’s seen in his entire seventeen years on the earth and honestly, all things considered, it seems like a pretty good plan for the night.

**Thor**

No one ever rings their doorbell. His friends know to use the sliding glass door and there’s a huge “no soliciting” sign right next to the doorbell, kind of hard to miss. Thor doesn’t even bother to put on a shirt to answer the door, figuring it must be some well-intentioned Jehovah’s Witnesses who believed that saving his immortal soul or whatever technically didn’t count as soliciting.

It’s Clint. He waves sheepishly before putting his hand back in his sweatshirt pocket, staring down at his feet. “Morning. You always open the door without a shirt on or you trying to tell me something?”

“Why are you ringing my doorbell?” Thor steps aside, spreading his arm. Clint hesitates for a second before stepping out of the cold. His hair is standing up at all angles like he just woke up and drove over to Thor’s without even glancing at a mirror the entire time. Which, knowing Clint and estimating the amount of hangover by the puffiness under his eyes, is probably exactly what he did. “No one rings our doorbell.”

“I thought it was more polite than banging on your sliding glass door until your parents called the cops or you answered the door. Faster, too.” Clint runs a hand through his hair, apparently noticing for the first time that it’s not laying right. “I have to talk to you. Can we go to your room or something?”

Clint sits on the edge of Thor’s bed like he’s afraid he’s going to break it. He’s been in Thor’s room a few times, but it’s a bit updated. There’s a picture of him and Clint from Homecoming tacked to his wall with all of the olds ones--Tony, drunk and asleep sometime during freshman year, Jane sitting on Thor’s lap at one of Rhodey’s parties, Steve and Bucky smiling with their arms around each other at the end of Bucky’s sophomore year, Natasha getting a piggyback ride from Clint down one of the hallways at school last year. He almost stands in front of them so Clint can stop looking at them and cut to the chase, but he can see that they’re part of the reason Clint’s here. There are also plenty of pictures of Thor and Loki. Thor with an arm across a sullen Loki’s shoulders on various family vacations, sunscreen not rubbed in all the way across Loki’s nose. Birthdays. Hell, he’s even got some of Loki’s school pictures tacked up there. All a reminder of who he’s been and where he’s going. Clint doesn’t seem to look at it that way.

“You weren’t at Tony’s long last night,” Clint says, finally, tearing his eyes away.

Thor sits down at the chair near his huge bay window, propping his feet up on his desk. “No. As I’m sure you’ve heard, Tony and I have been having some differences of opinion.”

“I’d heard, but not actually what these differences of opinion are about.” Clint sits back on the bed as if he finally trusts that it’ll support his weight.

“Is that why you’re here? To do Tony’s dirty work for him?”

“Nope. I’m here for you, buddy.” Clint’s shit-eating grin is good, but not as good as it needs to be. He’s never been good at hiding ulterior motives. Or at least not as good as the people Thor’s used to.

“It’s about Loki.”

“Are he and Tony--hanging out a lot? I hadn’t noticed.” Clint’s eyes narrowed and he’s back to looking at the pictures. There’s one of Kate dancing with Steve at Homecoming, both of them with their heads thrown back. He gets up off the bed to get a closer look at it. “Hey, can I have this one? Do you mind?” Thor shakes his head. Clint carefully untacks it and sits back down on his bed, smoothing out the corners of the picture in his lap. “You’ve got a good eye, you know. I think I’m going to give this to Steve so he can draw it. Maybe he’ll give you the drawing and you can pin that up, too.” Thor nods, waiting for Clint to give any more indication as to why he’s here, in Thor’s bedroom, hungover, at one in the afternoon. He doesn’t.

“So you’re just here to take pictures from me, then?”

“What’s really going on with Tony and Loki? Do you know?” Clint’s gaze is measured. He’s looking at Thor the same way he’d been looking at the pictures, looking for any small detail others would overlook. Thor stretches, refusing to shrink away from the scrutiny. If he’d wanted Clint and the rest of them to know, he would have told them himself sometime between Homecoming and now. He’s had months. He hasn’t said a word. He doesn’t plan on it now. Loki is his brother. Blood is thicker than water and all of that.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. As far as I know, nothing was going on. Tony invited him to parties. I didn’t want him at any of Tony’s parties. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.”

Clint’s eyes only get narrower. “He wasn’t at Tony’s last night, though.”

“Doesn’t mean Tony didn’t invite him. And I saw them talking at Bishop’s the weekend before. I know what he was planning.”

“I mean, he usually seems all right at parties, Thor. Better than you at his age, at any rate.” Clint’s mouth turns up for a second, probably remembering the time Thor had thrown a hammer through a plate glass door at Tony’s. Comparatively, everyone could hold their liquor better than Thor as a freshman. He hadn’t exactly set the bar very high.

“That doesn’t mean I want him anywhere near Tony Stark.”

“And why is that? Because Tony’s any worse of an influence than any of the rest of us? Steve’s the only one that was ever a boy scout and I think he was drunk the night he became an eagle scout, anyway. It’s Kate I’d be worried about, honestly. She’s--fond of him.”

“Is she? And here I thought she was fond of you.” Thor raises an eyebrow at Clint. Kate Bishop hadn’t been on anyone’s radar until she was practically attached at the hip to Clint and now they couldn’t get rid of her if they tried. Thor had assumed that they were dating until Loki had told him so offhandedly about Clint and Steve. Clint doesn't seem like he's going to be talking about that anytime soon, either.

“I mean, she might be, but it’s not going to happen.” Thor must look unconvinced because he shakes his head and presses on. “Besides, I only brought her up because I know she and Loki spend a lot of time together, too, and she always invites him to her parties. Why aren’t you fighting with her, too?”

“They’re the same age.”

“And there’s the same people and the same amount of alcohol at both parties. I don’t see what makes Tony inviting him so different.”

Thor lets out a long sigh, brushing his hair back from his face. “Just leave it, okay, Barton? It’s between Tony and I.”

“Yeah, I get that, but I think--I think there’s something bigger going on here. Something bigger than what you’re telling me. I can help you, Thor. If what Tony and Loki are doing is dangerous--”

“If I wanted your help, I would have asked for it.”

Clint stands up, clutching the picture in his hand like he’s going to crumple it up. “I’m trying to be a good friend here, Thor.”

“Good friends don’t push on locked doors, Clint.”

“Who said I was being a good friend to you?”

**Natasha**

She hears a tapping on her window and almost allows herself to believe it's Bucky, but he's not the John Cusack type. That had always been more Clint's style. She pads over to the window, wearing nothing but a faded, paint-spattered t-shirt, black panties, and socks. Clint is huddled on the low landing outside her bedroom, having scaled the side of the wall. He waves sheepishly at her, blowing on his gloveless hands. Only Clint would climb four stories at the end of December, not wearing gloves. She unlocks and pushes open the window, wrapping her arms around herself as he lets the cold air in. Clint climbs in, well, more like falls in, and shivers, smiling wide at her. He looks less out of place in her bedroom than Bucky does. Perhaps because he has always understood and appreciated that kind of stability for never having had it himself.

“You better have a damn good reason for climbing up here at this hour.” She briefly considers putting on a pair of sweatpants, but it's nothing Clint hasn't seen before and the general rules of the ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend relationship don't seem to apply to them anymore.

“I do. I'm pretty sure I know who's selling the drugs.” She lets out a quick breath and steps back to let Clint strip off his coat and toss it on one of the pink upholstered chairs. She sits on the end of her own bed. The bed is still tall enough that her feet dangle off the end like she's a child. “It's Loki.”

“Loki?”

“Yeah, Thor's little brother.”

“I know who he is, Clint, I just don't understand why he'd be selling crystal meth to Bucky and Tony.” Loki. She tries to bring her general impression of him to the forefront of her mind, but he hasn't really left one, fading in and out of the edges of her memory. When she first met Thor, Loki had been too young. He'd stand sullenly in the corner, watching their Mario Kart tournaments from afar, and she remembers seeing him on the fringe of parties, always orbiting just outside of the main party like a shadow. Or a leech. She had never gotten a good read on him, but that didn't automatically mean he was guilty of dealing crystal meth to a high schooler whose exploits were usually on page six.

“I went over to Thor's this morning. He was really dodgy about the whole thing. He knows more than he's willing to share, but he's protecting his brother.”

“Wouldn't you?”

There's a furrow between Clint's brow and Natasha feels like taking it back, but she's already said it. He looks away from her face, maybe afraid he'll see pity there. She's never pitied him for what happened to him, how he ended up. She knew what it was like to have to make choices to survive. “You already know I didn't. I had to make a choice and I made it.” There's a hardness to his voice that's never there, no room for misinterpretation or double meanings or unexpected mirth under the dryness of his tone.

“And you expect Thor to make the same choice?” It's almost a rhetorical question. He turns on his heel, fast, angry, but it feels like they're just treading on old territory. She wants very much for this conversation to be about stopping Loki, coming up with a plan, but it, like every conversation that cuts too close to his past, is always going to be about them. Because as much as she knows she's falling in love with Bucky, Clint will always be the person who knows the most about her. The person closest to seeing who she really is. That doesn't mean he's accepted it, a hard pill to swallow, but it did mean that they would always have a connection and that always meant unfinished business.

“I don't expect Thor to do anything, but I didn't expect him to treat it like I was coming in with a sniper rifle and a red dot on his brother's chest. I pretty much showed my whole hand and he wasn't buying, but it was obvious he had no reason to protect Tony and he was uncomfortable talking about why he didn't want Loki hanging around with Tony. So there you go. That's the most I'm going to find out from Thor. Did you find out anything from Tony? Or Steve?”

“Steve?” She laughs, but it sounds false to her own ears. Clint raises an eyebrow at her, suspicious. She's not jealous. That's not what it's about. “I figured I'd leave Steve to you. Since you seem to be taking such a hands on approach with him.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” He crosses his arms over his chest, no trace of embarrassment.

“Come on, Barton. You're like two school kids, ducking into corners, giggling and blushing. Steve doesn't know anything. If he did, he'd already have told you. You're too blind to see he's wrapped around your little finger.” She lays back against her bed, suddenly exasperated by the conversational circles. Arguing with Clint is never about one thing. Talking with Clint is never about one thing. It can be hard to keep track. Especially when she had thought that she was finally started simplifying her life.

“He's not wrapped around my little finger. His head is too far up your boyfriend's butt to be wrapped around my anything.” Clint sinks down into the chair, on top of his coat, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “How do you know anything about Steve and me anyway?”

“Steve told Bucky and Bucky told me. Did you pop his cherry?” She sneers up at the canopy of her bed. Clint had been a virgin their first time. She's never going to let him forget it.

“I don't fuck and tell.”

“Hmm, no, you don't.” She feels his weight making her bed dip in. He lays down next to her, close enough that she can feel the anger radiating off of his body, but not close enough to touch. “I'm not upset about it, you know.”

“I would never flatter myself enough to think that any of my future romantic choices upset you.”

“Do mine?” She turns, but his face is hard to read in profile. His eyes have slipped shut like he's going to fall asleep. He has fallen asleep in her bed in the middle of conversations many times. It would be more of a return to form than anything else.

“You could do worse than Bucky. I just wish—I don't know, it feels very love triangle right now. Or love rectangle. Me and you and him and Steve and me and Steve, it's all kind of confusing. I think that's one reason Steve and I are _trying_ to play it pretty close to the chest. Just so it doesn't get even more muddled up.”

“Bucky hates you.”

Clint laughs, pushing air out of his nose. “That, too. I think it bothers Steve that I didn't get an overwhelming stamp of approval. In Bucky's defense, I probably wouldn't have given myself an overwhelming stamp of approval either. I'm kind of a mixed bag, dating history wise. I mean, what happened with Jessica alone, but add in the stuff with me and you and whatever the fuck everyone thinks is going on with me and Kate. It's all pretty bad.”

“Steve knows all that and he still chose you.”

“Chose is a strong word.”

“I don't think so. He's been waiting for Bucky all of his life and he had to know there was something better—someone better—or he'd still be waiting.”

“Well, when you put it like that.”

“What time is it? Did you already break curfew?” Clint shifts around on the bed, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. He nods, settling back down against the bed. “You just wanna stay here tonight then?”

“Your boyfriend won't mind?” Clint turns around and smiles, his eyes bright.

“What he doesn't know won't hurt him.”

His hands are still cold as they dip under the waistband of her panties like they belong there. So are his lips when he leans over to kiss her. He kisses her like he wants to drown and she should stop him, but Clint Barton is the only person she’s never learned to shut out completely.

**Steve**

Steve normally spent New Year's at Bucky's. They'd put the couch cushions on the floor and watch the ball drop in Times Square and stay up until the sun came up, just talking. About the year before. About their plans for next year. It had been bittersweet last year, Bucky's eyes shining when he talked about graduating and enlisting and leaving New York behind. Leaving Steve behind.

Bucky hadn't extended an invitation this year, no real surprise. Kate was having a party, but Clint swore up and down that he understood that Steve was a sucker for tradition and that he’d be the stand in Bucky if it meant that much to Steve. It does. It does mean that much, but Steve doesn’t want to scare Clint off and he doesn’t want to make Clint regret missing Kate’s party, either. He’d gotten that picture of Kate and himself dancing framed and intended to give it back to Clint. It's a good picture.

He’d also done his best to warn Clint about how home health care his apartment was. There was a day nurse at the house when Steve was at school, but otherwise he was his Mom’s primary caregiver. Turning her in the bed so she didn’t get sores. Preparing all of her meals. Listening to her prayers to die at night. But they didn’t have very many options. Honestly, if Steve hadn’t proven himself a competent caregiver, he’d probably already be in the foster system while his mom died in a state-funded nursing home. Unless Bucky’s mom could somehow get custody. He spends most of his time not considering that he’s probably going to end up in foster care no matter what he does.

He’d procured a bottle of champagne from Tony earlier in the day and stood on the countertops to pull down the best wine glasses they had, the ones his mom and dad had been gifted at their wedding. He chilled the glasses and the bottle and combed his hair to the side and put on a sweater that made his eyes the bluest and waited for the buzz that meant Clint was on their stoop.

He hears a tap on the kitchen window. Probably just something falling off of the fire escape. Another tap, this time loud and insistent. Clint is crouched out on the fire escape, grinning at Steve through the window. Steve has to stand on a step stool to get the window open and Clint has to put his foot in all the dirty dishes in the sink and practically falls on top of Steve when he tries to help pull him in. “I have a front door, you know,” he laughs, imagining Clint scaling seven floors and running along the fire escape until he found the right window.

“Yeah, but wasn’t this so much more fun?” Clint has a leaf in his hair. Steve pulls it out, laughing, and tries to smooth Clint’s hair back against his head, standing on the tips of his toes. It doesn’t work. “Oh, also, I have a present for you.” Clint reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a single, bright orange rose. It’s crushed, the petals falling off. “Sorry, I, uh. Sat on it, I think. But I picked it in Central Park this morning ‘cause I read on the internet that an orange rose means ‘desire and enthusiasm’ and I thought of you. Maybe you can use a petal in your sketchbook or something. Draw a nice nude picture of me and put a couple of petals over my more interesting bits.”

Steve’s still standing on the tips of his toes. He takes the rose from Clint, pricking his thumb on one of the thorns. He sucks the blood off of his thumb, rocking back on his heels, and bouncing back on his toes to press a quick kiss to the corner of Clint’s mouth. He wraps his arms around Clint’s shoulders for extra balance. “A couple of petals? Don’t you think that’s being generous?”

Clint smacks the back of his head before pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Haven’t you ever heard of flattery, Rogers?”

“I got you a present, too. Hold on.” He reluctantly drops his arms and pads into the front room, pulling the picture off of the TV. “I mean, it’s nothing big, but I remember you saying you didn’t have a lot of pictures, so I figured. Maybe you can hang it up when you buy your apartment next year.” Clint runs his thumb along the frame appreciatively before setting it on the counter. “And I got some champagne, too, but we can’t bust that out until midnight.”

“Why not?” Clint wraps his arms around Steve’s waist, fingers carefully and slowly making Steve’s sweater and shirt ride up so he can touch his bare skin.

“Tradition.”

“But what if I want to kiss the champagne taste out of your mouth, huh?”

“Patience is a virtue.”

They end up drinking champagne in the little fort of cushions Steve made in the front room and it’s only ten, but Steve is loathe to deny Clint anything at this point. “Better than Bucky?” he asks, pouring himself another glass of champagne. The bottle is already almost gone. Steve is feeling warm and light and happy and doesn’t want to talk about Bucky so he presses a warm, insistent kiss to Clint’s lips, hoping that answers the question.

“We can make this a new New Year’s tradition, if you want.”

“Does that mean we’re… you know. Dating? If we’re like, having New Year’s and stuff?”

“Yes, Rogers. We’re going steady.”

Steve tries to punch him, but Clint kisses him, mouth full of champagne. Steve falls over backwards, knocking the entire fort down on top of them.

**Clint**

Natasha has a plan because Natasha always has a plan. She just doesn’t deem Clint worthy enough to share in her plan and he feels like he’s already in so deep, it would be criminal to leave it alone. The only other person he can think who would know more about Tony and Loki, maybe a supply and demand situation, would be Bruce. Clint hasn’t heard from him in weeks--he and Tony must have had a falling out, so he’s not attending any of Tony’s soirees and he always begs off of Kate’s, giving some flimsy excuse like he has an exam for his 8 A.M. class Monday morning. Clint has it on good authority that Bruce is not taking an 8 A.M., but he understands the temptation to run away perhaps better than anyone else.

Bruce’s dorm is one of the older ones on campus, but nicely renovated with good WiFi and central air. Clint knocks on the door, half-expecting no one to open it. But Bruce does, wearing a Stark Industries sweatshirt and some baggy sweatpants, his glasses kind of askew and his hair a curly mess. He smiles at Clint, almost hesitantly, as if afraid that Clint is going to call him out on his disappearing act. He steps aside so Clint can come in. Their set up is pretty nice. Bruce has a futon, a refrigerator, and a microwave under his bed. They don’t have a TV, but that’s the only thing missing. Clint takes a seat on the futon, stretching his arm across the back. “College life treating you well?” he asks.

Bruce shrugs. “Academically, yeah. Socially, I don’t know. I had an--episode, a couple of weeks ago, and I think it sort of scared my roommate off, I don’t know.”

Clint nods. He half-expects Bruce to sit next to him, but he remains standing, arms crossed defensively over his chest, maybe trying to hide the fact that Tony’s name is emblazoned across it. “Well, hey, you didn’t come here to make friends. Get in, get your piece of paper, get out, right?” Bruce shrugs again. Clint finally sighs and pats the spot on the futon next to him. “Will you fucking sit down, you’re making me anxious.” Bruce sits down as far away from Clint as possible, near the edge of the futon, arms still over his chest. “Bruce, come on. What’s going on? I’m not going to bite you. You’ve known me for years.”

“Why’d you come out here now? You haven’t been to my dorm since you guys moved me in. Did Natasha send you to check up on me?” He looks like a caged animal and Clint feels like his chest is going to cave in. An episode a couple of weeks ago, Bruce had said. That isn’t true. It’s not over.

“No, Natasha hasn’t said anything about you. I wanted to see you and this seems like the only way to get you lately. No one sent me, Bruce, I’m my own man here.” Clint scoots closer to him on the couch, half expecting him to shrink away. He doesn’t. “You’re my friend and we’ve both got a lot going on in our lives right now. I want to catch up.”

“So you’re here about Tony.” He pulls the sweatshirt tighter around himself, defensively.

“I’m not here about anything. Why does everyone always think I have an agenda? I cannot have an agenda, there is not room in my brain for an agenda.”

“Don’t play coy with me, Barton. You’re as bad as she is.” Clint doesn’t have to ask which “she” he’s referring to.

“Apparently I’m more transparent. I’ll work on that. You don’t have to talk about him, that’s fine, but I can see it’s tearing you up. If I told you I was trying to help him, would that mean you’d be more willing to talk about it?”

“Natasha isn’t trying to help him?”

“In a roundabout way. Natasha is, as Natasha is wont to do, serving her own best interest.”

“Bucky.”

“Yeah. She’s not big on sharing what she wanted to do with my valuable information. Or what Tony’s done to put you in self-imposed isolation. Both things that would be good to know so I could figure out my next move with all of this. I can’t do anything by myself and you seem like the best person to talk to about helping Tony.”

Bruce laughs, if it can be called that, too bitter to be a true laugh. He rocks back a little on the futon, still squeezing his arms around himself. “I’m not so sure about that anymore. He made it pretty clear I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”

“You think you were getting too close to something?”

Bruce finally lets go of himself, relaxing back against the futon, pulling the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands like a child. “I don’t know anything about the drugs, if that’s what you’re asking me. Nothing that could help you or him. He came up here flying high and he crash landed and it scared me. When I tried to talk to him about it, he shut me down. Hard. Pretty much told me my best shot at getting to fuck him was if he was high on crystal and only then. As if that’s the only reason I’ve been friends with him this whole. That’s all I know. I don’t know when he started using, I don’t know where he’s getting it, I don’t know how Bucky’s involved, I don’t know anything that could help.”

“You really think letting him freeze you out is helping him?”

“What else am I supposed to do, Clint?”

“I don’t know, not let the drugs win. You think that was Tony talking?”

“If you don’t, you don’t know him very well, either. Look, Clint, it _hurts_ , okay? I don’t want to put myself through that.”

“I don’t see how it can be worse than what you’re putting yourself through.” Bruce’s jaw is tight, his eyes almost green as he holds Clint’s gaze, a staring contest that no one is willing to lose. “I know who’s been giving it to him. It’s just a slippery slope. I think it would be easier to try to talk to Tony, give him some better alternatives, than to confront his dealer. It would be burning too many bridges the other way and I--I think that’s more Natasha’s M.O. anyway.”

“She’s still why you’re doing this.”

“No. She’s why I got involved, you’re right about that. She asked me to find the drugs. I found the drugs. But she’s not why I’m doing _this_. You and Tony are why I’m doing this. And Bucky, too, I guess, if he’s involved.”

“You hate Bucky.”

“Yeah, well. Some things have changed in my life, too. I’ve got a--boyfriend.” Clint doesn’t mean to stumble over the word, he really doesn’t, but it’s the first time he’s ever said it out loud. It sounds stranger than he expected, but thinking about Steve makes him feel warm and tingly all over, like the first time he’d gotten drunk. There’s not a better word for that feeling, unfortunately. “He’s got a vested interest in Bucky’s well-being and I’ve got a vested interest in his.”

“Steve. You and Steve, huh.” Bruce doesn’t look shocked, particularly, but his eyes are kind of blank, vacant. “How long has that been going on?”

“Officially, not long. Unofficially, a little while. Since Kate’s party, the last one of the summer. It’s not a big deal, not really, it’s just. You know. He’s a good guy.” He gives Bruce a couple of minutes to process. Bruce cleans his glasses on his sweatshirt and when he puts them back on, it’s obvious the wheels are turning in his head, his eyes no longer vacant.

“I swear to God, Barton, if you break his heart, I’ll break yours.” Bruce smiles, really smiles, for the first time in the whole conversation.

“Get in line. So you’ll help me? With Tony?”

“Yeah, I’ll help you with Tony. You come up with a plan, I’ll follow your lead.”

Plans are not, as a general rule, Clint’s strong suit, but he knows he has to get a leg up on Natasha before she does something she’ll regret.

****

Act V

**Thor**

It’s obvious his friends are set to make a move against Loki. It’s also obvious that despite his best efforts, Thor is not going to get through to him in time. There’s no way Loki’s doing all of this by himself with no ulterior motives, but Thor fails to see a way to force the information out of him. Except his last resort.

When Odin, his father, comes back from business overseas, he usually demands that they have a formal, sit down dinner. Thor enjoys it, since most of the time he feels like his father is too busy to give him the time of day or get to know him beyond what’s written about him in the local newspaper, but it seems like an exercise in torture for Loki most of the time. Like most things that don’t involve crystal meth or Tony Stark, it appears.

Dinner is roasted chicken which Odin cuts with the longest and sharpest knife they have in the set, mashed potatoes, and creamed corn. Trying to be the picture perfect all American family, even though Odin’s English is heavily accented and he named both of his sons after Norse gods, like his father had done, so they’d serve as a constant reminder of where they’ve come from, how high Odin himself has risen. What Thor is set to inherit.

Odin is Howard Stark's biggest competitor in the weapons industry. It would be dumb not to assume that Loki's involvement with Tony is someone else's calculated risk. A calculated risk aimed right at Odin and Howard Stark.

“Father.” Odin is stabbing his chicken with a fork, ignoring Thor. He generally believes that children shouldn’t speak unless spoken to and Thor has, for most of his life, followed that rule. On paper, Thor has been a golden child. Dating Jane and seriously considering taking a professional football deal are his only blemishes and if he can keep the last one secret until it actually happens, he might be in good shape. “Father. We have to talk about something.”

Odin casts his eyes at him, but doesn’t reply, chewing slowly. One of his eyes is glass and never moves, as cold as the rest of them. It’s the eye Thor usually prefers to talk to, but he knows Odin’s stare for what it truly is. An invitation to proceed at his own risk. “It’s about Loki.” Loki’s chair drags against the floor. He leaves without listening to another word. Odin doesn’t stop him. He would have stopped Thor. “He’s--using drugs. And selling them. I think he might be in trouble. In over his head.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Odin stabs another piece of chicken and shoves it into his mouth without ceremony.

Thor is thrown by the question, but tries to keep it out of his voice. “He’s your son. He needs your help.”

“Are you suggesting I send him to a rehab? How would that look in the press?” Another large piece of chicken, and his slow, disinterested chewing. Frigga, his mother, seems troubled, at least, but she never intercedes for Thor. Always for Loki, but never for Thor.

“How would it look if he overdoses and dies? Or the press finds out your son has been dealing drugs to one of your biggest competitors? He’s selling crystal meth to Tony Stark, Father. Stark Industries Tony Stark. Howard Stark’s son, Tony Stark. Plenty of people go to rehab, Father, and their lives are better for it. He’s only fourteen. He's not doing it by himself. Someone is trying to hurt you through him.”

“How do you know any of this is going on if you’re not involved? How do you expect you’ll play football if you fail a drug test?”

Thor stares straight into his glass eye, feeling cold all over. “I know because my friends care about me, and Loki, and they told me. And because I saw him doing it with my own eyes. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, but it’s going nowhere. He needs you. He needs a father.”

“I’ll speak with him.” He stabs his last piece of chicken as if that settled the matter. Speaking to Loki. The adopted son he’d never wanted in the first place. Frigga's joy and Odin’s only disappointment.

“Speak with him.” Thor doesn’t manage to keep the anger out of his voice. Frigga reaches across the table to grab at his hand, but he tucks it under the table, drawing away from her. He can fight his own battles. He’s graduating in five months. His father can’t control him anymore. “His entire life is on the line and you’re going to speak with him. You’re his _father_. Do you even love him? Do you even love me? Do you love anything but yourself and your precious reputation? Loki is your son, whether he’s your blood or not. You raised him. I do have your blood and I feel closer to Loki than I’ve ever felt to you. If you’re not going to do anything, I know it will only get worse. And it _will_ get out and it _will_ damage your reputation. Whoever is doing this, giving him the drugs, making him target Tony, is powerful. He needs your help to get out. I’m your son, too, and I’m telling you. Help my brother.”

Thor follows Loki’s exit. He didn’t even touch any of his food.

**Natasha**

Natasha intends to blackmail Loki into telling her about James. Tony is a secondary mission. If she can’t get Loki to confess, she’s certain the eminent threat of Odin is enough. She can tell by the way Clint talked around his conversation with Thor that appealing to Thor is a dead end and she’s not ready or willing to confront James about it. To his credit, he doesn’t seem to be in as deep as Tony.

The only wrench in her plan so far is the fact that Bruce is actually in attendance. He hasn’t been to one of Kate’s parties in months, let alone one of Tony’s. She sees him standing by the keg, laughing at something Steve is telling him, animatedly. Clint has a loose arm around Steve’s waist and she normally doesn’t feel guilty about those types of things, but her stomach twists, thinking about Clint spending the night. In every sense of the word. Hurting James was one thing. Thinking about Steve’s feelings if he ever found out was another kind of pain entirely.

She elbows Bruce, hard, in the ribs. “What the fuck are you doing here, kid? I thought we talked about this.” Bruce rubs the spot on his side, leading her away from Clint and Steve as if he’s embarrassed. Natasha knows better. He thinks he’s done a good job hiding his feelings for Tony. He’s still trying to pretend his collapse and disappearance have nothing to do with Tony. “Come on, Bruce. Everyone knows why you haven’t been hanging around. What’s so different now?”

Bruce takes his glasses off and rubs them on the end of his untucked shirt, a defensive habit. “You, okay? What you told me. About not letting him ruin my life anymore. I wanted to see my friends, get a little drunk, so here I am.”

Natasha narrows her eyes. Bruce is not a good liar, never has been, and there’s an energy coming off of him, unusually tight and contained and wrapped up. He’s not only hiding something from her, he’s holding something back. An anger sharp enough to scare himself. “Clint told you about Loki.”

“No, he--”

“I don’t have time to pad your ego. You’re a terrible liar, Bruce. He told you. What do you think your play is here?” She crosses her arms over his chest and shifts her weight to one side.

“What do you think yours is? What proof do you even have that Loki has anything to do with Bucky? This isn’t your fight, Natasha.”

“Oh, we’re fighting, are we? And I suppose you’re going to tell me that this has nothing to do with jealousy. Tony _chose_ Loki over you.” She points a finger in his chest. “You’re wrong, Banner, this _is_ my fight. This has been my fight before the rest of you even opened your eyes enough to know what was going on right under your noses. You’re right. I’m not in it to pull Tony out or drag Loki down. I’m in it to get names. This is bigger than you know and it’s about more than the fact that Tony Stark is playing you.”

Bruce bats her hand away, but her weight shift keeps her perfectly balanced and able to stay in his face, gritting her teeth. “You going to take down a drug ring one high school drug dealer at a time, Romanoff? Wearing skinny jeans and your boyfriend’s letterman jacket? I can see right through you, too, you know. You’re not as mysterious as you think you are. You’ve got tells just like the rest of us. If I’m following Tony around like a puppy dog, you’ve got Barton on a pretty short leash.”

She glances over at Clint. Steve is standing on the tips of his toes so he can try to smooth Clint’s hair down, a losing battle if she’s ever seen one. They both look happy and it’s another knife twist in her gut. “It’s not like that. You have no idea what my relationship with Clint is like, so don’t presume to tell me I’m using him or leading him on.” Clint kisses Steve on the nose. She feels Bruce’s eyes on her like heat. “This isn’t about any of that, anyway. This is about the fact that this shit is going to kill one of us if we don’t get a handle on it. You and Clint are too afraid to make waves, step on anyone’s toes. You’re not going to get anything done. I am.”

Bruce doesn’t argue with her. He turns on his heel and heads towards Tony’s bedroom. She follows after him, flipping her hair out of her face. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” She tries to tug his arm off of the handle of Tony’s door, knowing full well that they’re probably going to catch Tony and Loki in the act, but Bruce’s arm doesn’t budge. He pulls the door open with little ceremony, growling at her as she tries to step in front of him.

Loki is straddling Tony’s lap, shirtless, Tony’s fingers tangled in his hair. It only takes her half a second to realize what Bruce is going to do, but it’s half a second too late. His fist connects with Loki’s jaw so solidly, it makes a sickening wet, crunching sound and there’s blood. That quick. She runs at both of them, but Tony’s already on his feet, arms wrapped around Bruce’s chest, trying to keep him from taking another swing. “Bruce, Bruce, Bruce!” There’s a desperate, screaming edge to his voice, raw and scratched and, for once, truly vulnerable. “Bruce, please don’t do this.”

Bruce tosses him off easily and lands another crunching, wet blow to Loki’s face. Loki sputters, desperate for air, and there are bubbles of blood coming out of his mouth. Bruce’s eyes are gone, flashing more green than brown. She grabs his fist, holds it tightly between both of hers. There’s blood on his knuckles. She doesn’t care, smoothing her hands over them. “Bruce, you can’t. If he files a police report, you’ll go to jail. You’ll lose your scholarship. He’s not worth it, Bruce, please. Bruce, look at me.” He’s panting, his whole body humming with energy. His hand is hurt, shaking in both of hers. He refuses to meet her eyes. “Bruce, come on, look at me. This isn’t you. Come on.” He meets her eyes and it’s like everything melts away and all that’s left behind is a very real and desperate fear.

Tony’s got Loki’s head in his lap. Loki’s making a high pitched sound, the sound that someone makes when they’ve been seriously hurt. It feels like time freezes. Natasha doesn’t let go of Bruce’s hand until he drops it to his side, still shaking. She hears Thor before he appears in the doorway. His eyes are wide and scared and he gets one look at Bruce’s bloody knuckles before he’s got his hands shoved up under Bruce’s collar, an elbow in Natasha’s stomach to keep her away. He slams Bruce against the headboard of Tony’s bed, the entire wall rattling with the force of it and Bruce’s eyes roll up in his head for a second, his glasses falling off of his face. Natasha can hear herself yelling, but it sounds far away, someone else’s voice. Thor squeezes and Bruce is sputtering, his legs kicking out, but finally Thor eases up, enough for him to answer a question. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“He’s selling Tony drugs,” Bruce rasps, clawing at Thor’s hands with his chewed up nails. It doesn’t seem to be having an affect.

“So you smash his face in?” Thor’s face is inches away from Bruce’s, yelling through clenched teeth. Natasha grabs at his arm, but she might as well be trying to move a tree trunk. He ignores her completely.

“It’s my fault.” Tony’s voice is quiet, weak, shaky from the floor. He’s still got Loki’s head in his lap, blood all over his hands. Loki has stopped making that sound, but there are tears all over his face and it’s already starting to bruise, one side of his jaw turning practically black. “I provoked him, it’s my fault.” Thor lets go of Bruce’s throat, but keeps a hand to his chest, pinning him to the headboard. “Don’t kill Bruce, big guy. Everyone take it easy. How about someone gets me a wash cloth or something?” Nobody moves. “Natasha?”

She heads into the bathroom and swipes the towel off of the drying rack and wets about half of it before heading back in. Steve and Clint have come in. Clint’s kneeling on the bed, his hand on Bruce’s leg. Steve’s mouth is open and his eyes are darting, like he’s not sure who to look at or what to believe. Natasha hands Steve the towel. “Wipe him up, Steve.” Steve sinks to his knees on the carpet and does as he’s told. The blood had made it look worse than it actually is. Both his nose and jaw are fine. There’s a line across his nose and bruising under his eyes, but it’s not broken. None of his teeth are even cracked. Thor lets Bruce up so Steve can look at his hand. Nothing broken, split skin on a couple of knuckles. Most of the blood had been Loki’s.

Despite the fact that the action is over, the tension in the room is smothering. Natasha sits on the floor, cradling her head between her hands. She feels Steve’s hand on her back, rubbing slow circles, but she doesn’t lift her head. “Natasha, it’s going to be okay. Everyone’s safe, it’s going to be okay.” She looks up at him, his sad smile nowhere near reaching his eyes. He doesn’t even believe himself.

“Did you know about James?” she asks him. The entire room is quiet. Loki is sitting up against Tony’s chest, sniffing and wincing as he touches his face. Thor has finally let Bruce go, sitting on the edge of Tony’s bed, ready to spring into action should anyone make a move. Clint is sitting hip-to-hip with Bruce against the headboard, chewing on his lip like he always does when he’s thinking too hard.

“What about him?” Steve blinks, ever the innocent. His eyes are so watery blue, so vulnerable, and Natasha doesn’t think an actual knife to the stomach could hurt worse than that look.

“He’s been--using, too.” She casts a glance at Loki. She’d hoped to hear it from his own lips, but if she got him condemned in front of a room of her peers, maybe she wouldn’t have to.

“I--what? Since when?” His hand stills on her back and finally he snaps it back like she’s burned him, sinking onto the floor next to her as if his legs have given out.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t actually talked to him about it. But definitely since that party at Kate’s in August.” Steve looks floored, his mouth still open, but he doesn’t argue. He must remember how fucked up James had been at that party.

Tony squeezes Loki tighter against his chest. “Are you accusing Loki?”

“Are there any other drug dealers sitting in this room? I mean, besides me, I guess.” Clint. Self-righteous and indignant and embarrassed that whatever he and Bruce had been planning didn’t work. Good to know he didn’t plan for Bruce to beat Loki to a bloody pulp.

“He was with me most of that night, if you must know,” Tony retorts, shaking Loki gently, expecting him to rush to his own defense. He doesn’t. “He’s not a drug dealer, anyway. You have to have a long list of clientele, a supply and demand pyramid thing going on. He doesn’t have any of that, okay? It’s me and him and some crystal meth. Whatever your boyfriend is doing--” Tony casts his eyes at Steve, not at Natasha, a clear insult to them both--“Loki’s not involved.”

“You’re fucking him.” Bruce. Not a question. He sits up, his hands fists at his side, pressed into the mattress, smearing blood. “You’re fucking him, aren’t you?”

“No, of course not.” Tony says it too fast, shrinking against the wall. Away from Thor. “None of your business,” he remedies. “It’s none of your business, any of you. Whether we’re fucking or if there is an exchange of money for illegal drugs, it’s none of your business and you are all in my bedroom without permission and you should get out. Right now.”

Thor gets up off the bed and kneels down in front of Loki. Loki turns his head away, but Thor grabs his chin, hard, making Loki whimper, and forces him to meet his eyes. “What they’re saying is true, isn’t it? Loki. Isn’t it?” He’s struggling against Thor’s fingers on his jaw, tears welling up in his eyes. Thor doesn’t let go. “You’re selling my friends drugs. Where are you getting them? Are you in trouble? Do you owe someone money? Why are you doing this?”

Loki spits in Thor’s face, half-mucus and half-blood from a cut inside his cheek. Thor wipes it away with the back of his hand, but he doesn’t get out of Loki’s face. “I told Father. I told him everything I knew. I believe my friends. If you’re not going to tell us what’s going on, you’re answering to him.”

The threat seems to have no affect on Loki, meaning that Natasha’s plan would have failed as well. She holds her hand out to Steve and helps him up. Bruce and Clint get up off Tony’s bed too, most of the tension fading around the edges, softening.

“Let’s go talk to James,” she whispers into Steve’s ear. He nods, tightening his jaw despite his watery eyes.

**Steve**

Bucky’s sleeping in the circle of his arms like he’d always done when he was a kid, his shirt riding up on his back. Steve sits on the windowsill, close to the fire escape, even though it’s freezing. He pulls his American flag Snuggie tighter around himself. Bucky had given it to him for Christmas a couple of years ago. He knows he should be kicking Bucky out soon. It’s Valentine’s Day and he and Clint have plans that don’t involve picking up the pieces of Bucky and Natasha’s relationship, but he’s not moving, watching the snow settle on the fire escape.

Talking to him at Tony’s party hadn’t gone well. There had been yelling and Natasha had slapped Bucky hard enough to leave finger shaped bruises across his cheek. Tony had, as politely as possible when looking like he’d rather see them all dead, told the three of them to “get the fuck out of his house” and it was perfectly obvious that Natasha wanted nothing to do with Bucky and Bucky didn’t want to be alone. He’d cried for hours, but eventually, with some gentle reassurance, told Steve about the drugs.

He was in deeper than any of them knew. He had to use everyday just to feel normal. To wake up without his body hurting. It was why he’d dropped so much weight that year, why he was falling asleep in class after having spent entire days awake, why he’d been avoiding Steve so much and acting so irrationally when they were together. He was afraid that Steve would be able to tell how much of a hole he was in and he was ashamed. Steve was his best friend, but he was also the best person that Bucky knew, he’d said. When he looks at Steve, he sees everything he’s supposed to be and he can’t help himself. Being around Steve has made him a better person because he’s never felt like he was deserving of the attention.

It isn’t lost on Steve that the speech is pretty similar to the one Clint gave him in the art room a couple of months ago and he’s also not dumb enough to mistake it for anything other than a well-intentioned manipulation tactic. On both counts. It’s sad that he believed it more of Clint than Bucky, but he could tell Bucky was hurting and that it took a lot for him to confess what had been going on, so he let it go, falling asleep against Bucky’s back like he had when they were kids.

He hears Bucky toss and he wakes up with a smile on his face. Happy before the rest of the day hits him. He pulls the covers up over himself, mock shivering. “How can you even sit up there, Stevie? It’s freezing.” He wipes blearily at his eyes and rolls over on his side, pressing his face into the pillow.

Steve unwraps his arms from around himself, the Snuggie sleeves completely covering his hands. “I’m warm.” He tucks the sleeves back around himself, trapping them under his armpits like a straight jacket. “How about you? How are you doing?”

Bucky had been hot and cold all night long, tossing and turning, mumbling in his sleep. He’d sweat the bed. The sheets were probably still damp, but Bucky’s got the covers pulled all the way up to his chin. Steve’s not sure how much of the night before he’s going to actually remember confessing.

Bucky rubs his face against the pillow, groaning. “‘Mtired and my whole body hurts. Feels like I got run over by a truck.” He laughs at himself, rubbing the cheek that’s not pressed to the pillow. Natasha’s hand print is still there, purple and blue, fading to yellow at the ends. It’ll look nasty for a couple of days. “I guess I fucked up pretty bad.” Steve doesn’t say anything. Natasha has a dark past and her own reasons for doing things. Reasons she’s never been particularly inclined to share. Steve has never felt like he had enough information to judge anything Natasha chose to do. “You still love me, though, right?” He rolls over on his back, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he smiles up at Steve, lopsided like he’s too tired to lift both sides of his mouth.

It’s not fair. Steve pulls the Snuggie tighter around himself, trying to keep his traitorous heart from beating harder in his chest. Bucky Barnes has been his best friend his entire life. He’s been in love with him as long as he can remember. But he never breathed a word of it and if Bucky knew, he pretended he didn’t. Steve would have liked to think that Bucky’s feelings toward Clint were all motivated by the sudden crashing realization that _he_ really belonged with Steve, but it probably had more to do with the fact that the two most important people in Bucky’s life had slept with him. But yeah. He does still love Bucky. No matter what he’s done or how stupid he’s been or what it’s going to take to get him out of this, he still loves Bucky. He doesn’t say that, though.

“Steve, come on. You look like I just told I came back from the dead or something.” Bucky’s eyes are wide. They’re a deeper blue than Steve’s own. Steve always thought that made him look more honest, earnest, but he doesn’t feel that way now. It’s easier to hide in those depths. “Does all of this bother you this much?”

Steve jumps down from the window, tripping on the hem of the overlarge Snuggie. He sits on the end of his bed. Bucky kicks his legs out and presses his feet, under the covers, against Steve’s legs. “You lied to me. _Me._ We’re supposed to be best friends, Bucky. Why couldn’t you ask me for help when you needed it? That’s what I’m here for.” He does his best to keep his voice steady, but it cracks towards the end. He averts his eyes. They’re stinging and dry, but he still doesn’t want Bucky to see them.

“You were busy, with Clint and everything. I didn’t want--you seemed happy and I didn’t want to do anything to mess that up.” Bucky sits up, wincing. He’s not wearing anything but his boxers, having shed his shirt under the covers. His body is covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He reaches out into the space between them, thumping the blankets down, trying to get Steve to look at him, but Steve turns back to the window. It’s started to snow.

“When I told you about Clint, you acted like I was being crazy or--or desperate. Now you’re going to use him as an excuse for being a shitty friend?” He can feel Bucky slink back, hears his head hit the headboard with a gentle thunk.

“You really think I’m being a shitty friend?”

Steve laughs. He doesn’t mean to. He covers his mouth with the sleeve of his Snuggie. When he looks at Bucky, he looks at his bare chest and not his face. Easier that way. “Yeah. You were shitty. You ditched me for Natasha and you ditched her for drugs and if you got what you deserved, you wouldn’t have either one of us, but life doesn’t work like that all the time. I know you’re scared, Buck, but so is everyone else.”

Bucky’s bottom lips quivers. Just for a second and then he’s turning his head away from Steve, staring hard at his own hand on the bed. “I didn’t mean to ditch you. I guess I got--caught up. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to make you--choose. In three months, I’m only going to be able to send you letters. I haven’t spent a single day away from you since preschool, Steve. I don’t know how that’s going to work.” He’s crying, but the stubborn way he does. Ignoring the tears that are sliding down his face, jaw set. 

“It’s going to work fine, Buck.” He resists the urge to wipe off one of Bucky’s tears with his thumb. Instead he watches its trail down his cheek until it stops on his chin. “It has to.”

Bucky turns to him, tears still in his eyes. “You never answered my question, though.”

Steve is suddenly very hot wrapped up in his Snuggie. There’s a look of determination in Bucky’s eyes, resolve, that hadn’t been there before. He knows exactly what question he didn’t answer.

“You still love me.” He states it like a fact, not a question. Unnecessarily cruel.

Steve scrubs the Snuggie down his face, getting some fuzz stuck in his mouth. “Can we not have this conversation?”

Bucky reaches up and picks the fuzz off of Steve’s lip. His whole body feels like it’s been doused in ice water. Bucky flicks the fuzz at him, his eyes bright, his smile as light as it had been when he woke up. “You still have some warm fuzzies, then. It’s okay, Steve, you can, uh, tell me. I’ve kinda known for a while.”

Steve lays back on the bed, not caring that he’s crushing Bucky’s legs underneath him. “And you waited till now to tell me? You could have saved me years of--agonizing.” He covers his face with the sleeves of the Snuggie.

Bucky pulls Steve's hands down by the wrists, face dangerously close to Steve’s. He hasn’t had a haircut in a while, waiting until graduation when he’s going to shave it all off, and his bangs are hanging in his face. Long enough to tuck behind his ears. “You’re fucking ridiculous. It’s not that big of a deal, honestly. I wish you would have just told me.”

“Why? So you could turn me down and I could spend the rest of our lives together mortified? I get it. If you liked dudes, it’d be me. You don’t like dudes. Let’s move on and forget about it.” Steve shakes his arms out of Bucky’s grasp and covers his face again. “Besides, I like Clint now, anyway. Useless conversation.”

“If I wanted you to break up with Clint, would you?” Steve can’t see Bucky’s face and he’s glad. His voice is enough to make it feel like all of his major organs have failed at the same time. Steve wants to say no, but it’s a lie, so he doesn’t say anything, answer enough. “If, uh, if you were my boyfriend, you could come visit the base and stuff. If you can’t go to art school or--whatever happens with your mom, if you were my boyfriend, you could even live with me when I get assigned. Thanks, Obama. If you wanted to, I mean. If that’s something you were interested in.”

Steve feels like he’s going to throw up. He sits up, trying to settle his stomach and to get his blood to redistribute through his body. It feels trapped in his head. “Are you and Natasha even officially broken up yet?”

Bucky is caught half-way straddling one of Steve’s legs, the covers loose around his waist and steadily falling. He looks weird in Steve’s bed now. Too big. “I think the bruise on my face is about all she’s got to say in the matter. I want you to be a part of my life, Steve. Every part of my life.”

“I like Clint now,” Steve says again, giving it extra weight.

Bucky shifts, now straddling both of Steve’s legs, practically looming over him. “It’s up to you. But I’m kind of as dumb in love with you as you are dumb in love with me and I’m sorry that I’m an asshole and it took almost losing you and the rest of my friends to realize it. But it’s up to you.”

He leans down and kisses Steve like it’s not really up to him, though. He kisses him like he’s trying to breathe for both of them, his hand light on Steve’s cheek like he’s afraid he’ll break him. There is Snuggie fuzz stuck to his lip when he pulls away. Steve plucks it off for him. Blows it out of his open palm like an eyelash and makes a wish.

**Tony**

The flowers are probably a bit much, but he’s not sure, exactly, what a proper apology for this scale of fuck up actually is. He knocks on the door, waits, no answer, so he turns the knob to find the door unlocked. Bruce isn’t there. His roommate had asked for a transfer at the end of the semester, a fact that Tony had learned from his stalkerish habit of Google alerting any of his friends’ new friends rather than from Bruce himself, and the school hadn’t moved anyone else into his room, so there was just an empty mattress and desk on one side of the room. The futon had apparently been Pym’s too, because it was gone. Tony lies down on the bare mattress, sticking the flowers in a pen holder on the empty desk, and stretches out. Bruce really needs to invest in a TV if he ever expects to get laid in his dorm room.

He must fall asleep, although he doesn’t remember. Bruce drops his backpack on the floor with a loud thud and Tony starts, rolling and immediately falling out of the twin bed. He knocks the wind out of himself, so he lays flat on his back, waving weakly at Bruce from the floor. Bruce picks his backpack up and sits it in Pym’s old desk chair. He sits on the end of the bare mattress, not offering to help Tony up. Not that Tony really expected him to. “Tony, what are you doing here?”

“I got you flowers,” he wheezes, managing to prop himself up on his elbows. Bruce casts a cursory glance at them, clearly unimpressed by both the arrangement and the gesture. Tony knew it was a bad idea. He should have gotten him a physics textbook or something practical. “I know they wither and die and all that stuff, but I just thought, I don’t know. Maybe they’d liven up your dorm room a bit. Also, maybe you should consider locking your door.”

“Believe me, I’m kicking myself for that one.” Bruce scoots back on the bed, pressing his back against the concrete wall, obviously weighing his options and realizing that Tony isn’t leaving anytime soon. “So you’re here to bring me flowers and take a cat nap? What else?”

“Um, to apologize?” Tony smiles wide, camera ready, but that hasn’t ever really worked on Bruce. “I know there’s absolutely nothing I can say that will justify my incredibly bad behavior, but I wanted to try to say some things anyway because I have done some serious reevaluating of my life since--you know. And I knew I was making mistakes while I was making them and I know it sounds completely ridiculous, but I’ve been living without consequences for my shitty behavior for so long that I, I don’t know, I thought it would be the same thing, different day type of treatment. I didn’t realize what acting the way I was acting would cost me. Namely--you. Your friendship. I’ve been really shitty to you for years and I’m sorry about that, too, although I don’t think there’s any formal apology in the world that will make up for that. I’m just--yeah. I’m sorry for this year. I’m sorry for what I’ve been doing. With the drugs and Loki and all of that. I’m sorry you had to find any of that out the way you did and I’m sorry I did it. I’m sorry.”

Bruce doesn’t say anything. He takes his glasses off and cleans them on the edge of his sweatshirt. It isn’t until now that Tony notices that it’s the Stark Industries sweatshirt he swiped from Tony’s bedroom years ago. Probably Tony’s freshman year of high school, maybe even earlier. The first time they’d gotten so drunk that they slept in the same bed and Bruce had woken up flustered and told Tony he was going to catch the train home and it didn’t have to be weird, wow, it wasn’t weird, and he’d grabbed Tony’s sweatshirt without thinking and never returned it. He’s absurdly glad that Bruce is wearing it. Maybe it means the apology won’t fall on deaf ears, although he deserves no less.

“Lots of sorrys in there.” Tony makes a noncommittal sound, but he does finally sit up, pressing his back against the heater underneath the window. It’s hot, but not hot enough to burn his back. “What effect did you hope your sorrys would have?”

“The magical restructuring of our friendship and the power of forgiveness?” Bruce laughs, although he grimaces afterwards as if he wished he hadn’t. “Look, I’m not--I realize that there’s a long road ahead of me. Lots of trust betrayed and all that. But I mean, won’t it be fun for you exacting your revenge by torturing me every moment of every day by forcing me to earn your friendship? That sounds like heaps of fun to me.”

“You’re exhausting,” Bruce laughs. He plucks one of the flowers out of the arrangement, twirls the stem between his fingers. “There are pansies in this arrangement, you know.”

“Oh, they were for me,” Tony says, not missing a beat, clutching his chest as if offended by the implication. “You’re wearing my sweatshirt, you know.”

Bruce looks down as if he doesn’t remember, smiling when he looks back up. “All the years I’ve been wearing this, and you never noticed it.”

“Maybe I’m finally opening my eyes.”

“Maybe you are.”

**Clint**

He’s not even surprised to see Natasha shivering out on his fire escape. He hasn’t been back to the group home in weeks, spending most of his time whining at Kate’s. He’d been drunk just about every night until Director Fury made a threat to suspend him if he came to school hungover one more time. He pretends it’s not about Steve, but on some level, it’s about all of them. Clint is supposed to be graduating with Bucky, Tony, Thor, Pepper, and Jane, going to his senior prom, saving up enough money to move out of the group home and live on his own in next few months when he becomes an adult and not a ward of the state, but none of those things are happening. He feels like he’s always going to be trapped in this vortex of personal failure and Steve’s just the latest in a long line of people he should have expected to disappoint. Although Natasha is at the very top of that list, the first person he knew he loved and absolutely did not deserve, and she was sitting out on his fire escape in late March like she’d been there for hours.

He opens the window and grabs the back of her jacket. “Get your ass in here.” She climbs in with all the grace of a cat, balancing on the windowsill long enough to practically vault off of it. She sits down, Indian-style on the floor, and pats the spot next to her. Clint doesn’t blame her. The bunk bed arrangement he’s got going on his room doesn’t exactly lend itself well to companionable chats, especially considering he’s got the twin sized top bunk. “I’m assuming you’re going to tell me off about the Steve thing?”

The Steve thing. He had felt his infidelity like a stone in his stomach and every time Steve smiled at him like the sun was setting and rising on his face, it grew bigger and bigger, threatening to clog up his throat. He didn’t have to explain his relationship with Natasha to Steve--Steve knew. There are some things that defied logic and Natasha is one of them. His feelings for Steve were real and scary and the sex was raw and different than anything else he’d ever done, but he felt like he was too bad of a person to end up with a guy like Steve Rogers, so he told him about Natasha. Steve didn’t even blink. He didn’t ask any questions. It felt like a door that had always been open to Clint had slammed shut in his face, but he’d done it and he deserved it, so he didn’t argue. It wasn’t until a few days later that he learned that Steve and Bucky were maybe a thing. The beginnings of a thing that maybe had began before the end of his thing with Clint. It still wasn’t anything less than what Clint deserved.

Natasha crosses her arms over her chest and shrugs, her usual answers to his questions, but somehow unusually vulnerable. Maybe it’s the cold. “What’s to tell you off about? I don’t really see the point in trying to make anything work right now. I feel like none of us are even friends anymore, after what happened. How could any of us really weather that storm?”

“We’re friends. You and me.” It sounds hollow, even to his own ears. He looks down at his hands, feeling absurdly off balance. He’s always known that when he was talking to Natasha, he was only getting the version of her she wanted him to see. It wasn’t a problem for him, he’d take anything he could get, but he’d felt, whether it was true or not, that he was the person she lied to the least. Now he wasn’t sure what to believe. Especially since it’s starting to feel like every single rug is getting pulled out from underneath him just when he gets used to the idea of it being there.

“Clint, come on. We’ve never been friends.” She’s not pulling any punches. Her jaw is set, ready for him to return fire, but that’s never been his style. Instead he lies back and rests his head in her lap. She stiffens for a second, but then scrapes her fingers against his scalp fondly.

She’s right, they’ve never been friends. Clint saw Natasha at one of Tony’s parties in middle school, back when they all thought playing seven minutes in heaven was the height of sophistication, and she had long, red hair, all the way down to her back. She looked like she’d rather punch him than kiss him when it was their turn in the closet, but Clint knew from that moment on, he was lost. Completely lost. No, they’d never been friends. As hard as he tried to make it that way, they could never be friends. And maybe he’d sealed his fate that way with Steve, too. Maybe you couldn’t be friends with someone once you’d been that far inside them.

“What are we doing then?” he asks, drumming his fingers idly on her thigh. He’s tired of not asking the right questions. That’s what this whole thing has been, this whole year. Nobody has been asking the right questions.

Natasha plucks his fingers up and intertwines them with hers. Clint hums low in his throat. “What do you want to be doing?”

Clint shakes his head, pressing his nose against the inseam of her pants. She still has her boots on, the soles digging into his shoulders, but he doesn’t even mind. “No, no that’s not what I asked. That’s not where this is going. What are we doing? What are _you_ doing? Here, right now, with me.”

“Do I have to be doing anything?” Her voice is light, almost like she’s not talking to him anymore. “Clint, I’ve built up these walls to keep all of this from happening, but everyone wormed their way in. I was easier to read than I thought I was or I showed my hand without noticing, something. I love Bucky, I really do, but I’m more afraid of that than anything I’ve ever been in my entire life. You have to give up pieces of yourself to be in love. You’ve got to trust people. And I can’t do that--again. So, yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing. Here, right now, with you, or in general. I’m starting over at square one and you’ve always been square one.”

Clint nuzzles his face against her thigh again. She scrapes at his scalp warningly, but he doesn’t stop, letting his face creep upward. “You’re not my square one.” His voice is low and quiet. He can barely hear himself. “You’re home to me.”

She lifts his head out of her lap and presses two butterfly kisses to each of his eyelids. “You’re home to me, too, Clint Barton.”

**Bruce**

They treat it almost like a federal penitentiary, although, Bruce supposes, in some cases, it may be the only alternative. They don’t cavity search him, but the guard is rough enough that Bruce feels just short of that violated. Tony hasn’t come to visit him, of that Bruce is certain. He’s also certain that Loki would have put Tony’s name on his visitor’s list, so that’s who Bruce says he is. Probably the reason half of the staff are afraid to make eye contact with him.

The visiting room is small and dank. It smells like old mold, a close approximation to how Bruce imagines this level of human despair would smell. There’s a TV mounted on the wall, the local news playing with no sound and a grainy picture. There are board games and mostly broken toys for children jammed up in one corner, underneath the huge, bolted sign declaring “NO ELECTRONICS.” They’d taken Bruce’s phone before they’d even asked him who he was there to see. The chairs and tables are all plastic and falling apart. He chips at some of the fake wood veneer with his thumb, all of it sliding off in a long, plastic strip under his nail.

The door is metal and bolted and one of the orderlies opens it slowly. Loki steps in, pushing his hair out of his face. It’s longer and greasier than Bruce remembers it being. There’s still a ghost of a bruise along his jaw and that band across his nose. His cheeks look pale, hollowed out, his eyes standing out like sapphires against the dark bags under his eyes. He almost turns back around when he sees Bruce, but the orderly slams the door shut like he’s trapping them together in a vault. He walks across the room to Bruce, slowly, as if afraid Bruce is going to jump at him before he gets there, his shoes squeaking with every step on the vinyl floor.

“You’re not Tony.” He scrapes the plastic chair across the floor and sits in it like it’s a throne, shoulders back and chin out. His defiance under the circumstances is extraordinary to Bruce. He’d felt like he’d already lost pieces of himself just getting in the visiting room. He can't imagine having to stay here.

“If you expected him to show up here, you really don’t know Tony Stark.” Loki crosses his arms over his chest, but he doesn’t argue. “I’m sorry you ended up in this place. It’s gotta suck.”

“My father’s lawyer seemed to think it would be more amenable than prison and I’d have to agree.” Loki’s back is to the TV, so he doesn’t see the footage flash up on the screen. Thanos, the drug kingpin Loki had fingered as part of the plea arrangement that had gotten him court ordered inpatient rehab, was being pushed into a cop car, headed towards his arraignment yesterday. He’d already made bail, but Bruce is betting Loki and the security guard, who could probably describe every inch of Bruce in great detail, already knew that.

“Thanks for not pressing assault charges.” Loki doesn’t even act as if he’s heard him. Bruce lets it go. “It would have been no less than I deserved. I shouldn’t have done that.” Still nothing from Loki. His face is stone, all sharp planes and cold indifference. “Has your brother been up here?” Loki’s face softens for a second, a flash, and he nods, before returning back to his general disdain. “You’re lucky to have him, you know. He really cares about you.” Loki makes a sound of disinterested dissent, but Bruce presses on. “He probably saved your life that night. And mine.”

Loki turns his full attention to Bruce for the first time since he sat down across from him, his eyes icy, crystalline blue, and impossible to read. “And both of those things are so worth saving?” He sneers when Bruce doesn’t reply immediately. “You don’t know Tony Stark half as well as you think you do either, Banner. But _I_ know you. And I know the things you’ve done to quiet the rage inside you. None of them good, but you can feel better, I suppose, knowing they didn’t land you in court ordered rehab.”

“Or completely under the control of something I didn’t fully understand.” It comes out harsher than he intended, but it only seems to amuse Loki.

“Oh, believe me, I understood. The line I signed was not dotted and I didn’t sign it in pen. Is it so hard to understand that I wanted something more for myself than the shadow of Odin and Thor?” He splayed his hands out on the table like he was showing a hand of cards. An open book. Bruce knows better. "Watching Thor become my father? Resigning myself to some stock shares and a trust fund?"

“If it took selling your soul to a man like Thanos and a drug like crystal, yes. And you couldn’t do it by yourself. You had to take Tony down with you.”

“I didn’t take Tony anywhere. Tony is a big boy, Banner, and he made his own choices. Just as you have.” Bruce clenches his fists under the table. He hadn’t expected Loki to be tamed by his few weeks in detox and away from the outside world, but he had expected him to be cowed, humbled at least a little by the reality of the situation he found himself in. But Loki is a professional to the end, the world he spun for himself far too intricate to collapse with a little pressure. “If you want to paint yourself the hero of this piece, Banner, I won’t stop you. But I don’t think even you can name me villain so easily.”

“You’re right. You aren’t a villain. You’re _delusional_. I don’t think I’m a hero. While Tony was self-destructing with Thanos’s poison running through his veins from your hand, I had my head buried in the sand and that’s nothing heroic. But I have never mistaken drugs for love and I’ve never had to buy Tony’s affection. If you hate your father and your brother that much, Loki, that’s your problem. If you touch Tony again, then it becomes mine. I don’t care what that makes me. The only important thing is that I’m not _you_.”

Bruce bangs on the door and the orderly lets him out. They search him before they let him leave. Only when he’s outside, breathing in late afternoon air in huge gulps to get the taste of mold out of the back of his throat, does he start shaking. He thought seeing Loki like that would help him understand and that the understanding would replace the terrifying, burning hatred he held for him in the pit of his stomach. It didn’t. If anything, he hated Loki all the more for it.

****

Act VI

**Natasha**

It’s obvious to her that James is in the end stages of detox. He’s lost more weight in two weeks than is normal, his muscles looking stringy and underused, his clothes hanging, his eyes standing out in his face under the dark circles. He seems happy, though, sitting up in the windowsill of his bedroom. The window that faces Steve’s apartment. His mom’s apartment is actually a lofted studio on the very top floor, nearly two hundred dollars cheaper than anything else on the block. His bedroom is a loft above the rest of the apartment. A queen mattress on the floor and a little bookshelf and dresser tucked into the corner. There’s a framed picture of him and Steve from middle school with their arms around each other sitting on the bookshelf. He looks like a little bird, tucked around himself in the window.

“I gave all your stuff to your mom, if that’s why you’re here,” he tells her without turning around. She hadn’t expected him to make it easy, but she also didn’t think he had a good understanding of how hard it was for her to see him like this.

“No, I wanted to see you. See how you were. With all the stuff that’s come out about Loki.” She shoves her hands in her sweatshirt pocket. Well, Clint’s sweatshirt pocket, but she had brought it into her wardrobe long before she and James had even thought about getting together.

“You see.” He hops down out of the window and spreads his arms out wide, daring her to take a good look. “I’m good. The stuff about Loki isn’t stuff that concerns me. Or you.”

“Don’t be this way, James. It didn’t take you long to run into Steve’s arms for comfort, forgive me for not feeling too broken up about breaking up.” She crosses her arms over her chest and leans against the bookshelf, pointedly blocking the picture. “That’s what I’m really here to talk about, if you want to skip all the small talk. What the fuck do you think you’re doing to Steve? I understand the impulse to get back at me and Clint, but Steve’s your _best friend_. He’s loved you for as long as I can remember. If you’re not really in this, and I mean _really_ in this, you better tell him now. I’m not watching you destroy his life.”

“Did you give Clint a similar lecture when you found out they were fucking or did you save this one just for me?” James puts his hands on his hips. She feels like they’re in a Mexican standoff. Waiting to see who’s going to pull the trigger first.

“No, I didn’t. Because Clint wasn’t using him.”

“Hard to believe Steve wasn’t just a placeholder when Clint’s been waking up every morning since in your bed.”

“We’re not back together, James. I don’t know what you think is going on with Clint and I, but you’ve got it wrong. I will always love him, but I don’t want to be with him. Not the way I wanted to be with you. He knows more about me than anyone else in the world and you were lying to me. I was watching you fall apart and sew yourself back together and you didn’t trust me enough to tell me what was going on. I didn’t turn to Clint to hurt you, I turned to Clint because I don’t have anybody else. And I’d like to think that’s what you were doing with Steve, but the way you’re acting now doesn’t sound like it.”

James shifts, crossing his arms over his chest, no longer on the offensive. Apparently she’s pulled the trigger first. “How could I tell someone like you that I was getting high all the time? I never wanted you to think that you weren’t enough or that you had to fix me or any of that. I didn’t want you to feel responsible for me. I didn’t tell you because I was ashamed and every second I was with you, it was like I was dreaming and I kept waiting for someone to pinch me and all of it would be gone. I didn’t want to do anything to mess it up. You constantly amaze me, Natasha, how was I supposed to tell you?”

Okay, maybe James had fired the first bullet. He looks like a child, curled into himself, and his eyes are so wide and so blue, she can barely stand to look at them. She feels like he’s knocked all the air out of her. “You can always tell me anything, James. There’s nothing you can say or do that’s going to change how I feel about you.”

“Then what are we doing?” She winces. The same question Clint had asked her.

“My feelings may not have changed, but I don’t trust you.” It’s an answer, a better one than she'd given Clint, and it's James’s turn to wince. “I can’t be with someone I don’t trust.”

“I’m not using Steve, but we’re not--together. We’re--whatever. You don’t have to worry about him.”

Natasha grins, laughing a little despite herself. James furrows his brow. “Oh, it wasn’t Steve I was worried about.”

**Clint**

He’s heard it said before, that whole “the night is darkest just before the dawn,” but it’s April now and the dawn doesn’t feel like it’s coming. Tony has parties, sure, but it’s like they’re all moving in different circles, orbiting around each other without ever touching down. Bruce is coming up on the end of his first year at Cornell and he’s not sure if he wants to go back. He’s looking into a community college, getting a job, maybe buying himself a little studio apartment, but he sounds resigned to the fact that, too, will leave something to be desired.

Clint’s eighteenth birthday is also fast approaching. About a month and half left. He doesn’t have enough money to live on his own. Secretly, he’d been hoping he’d get in well enough with Natasha to squat in her parent’s place. At least for a while, until he figured it out, but that doesn’t seem like a viable plan. So he’s been going to Plan B increasingly, which is crashing in Kate’s bed in a purely platonic way. Well, mostly platonic way. They make out sometimes and it’s in pajamas, so it always gets dangerously close to the line, but Clint has, for the most part, learned his lesson about blurring the line between friends and sex.

He’s wearing basketball shorts, thumbing through a book that Kate had sitting on her nightstand. She comes out of the bathroom in her penguin pajamas, her hair up in a loose bun, and she smiles fondly at him.

“You’re on my side,” she points out. Clint puts the book back down on the nightstand and scoots without lifting himself off the bed, dragging some of the covers with him. “So is this going to be a regular thing? Like should we maybe talk about you paying rent? Or like--getting you your own room?” He must make a face. She throws her hands up, her tank top riding up on her stomach. “Not that I mind sharing, but if this is going to be an indefinite thing, I’d like to have an indefinite plan. I like you, Clint. A lot more than you’d like me to, I know, but we’re friends. Let me help you if you need it.”

Clint sighs and flops around on his stomach so he can bury his face in her pillows. Kate’s smell is fading. He has been spending too many nights here. “I’ve been trying not to make any plans. I’m not good at plans,” he mumbles, mouth full of pillow.

Kate throws herself on the bed next to him, her hand warm on his back. He presses himself further into the pillows. “I’m good at plans. Tell me what you want to happen and we’ll figure it out together.”

Clint turns to face her. Some of her hair has fallen out of the bun, perfectly framing her face. “Are you sure you’re ready for this conversation?”

“Shoot.”

“I’ve got nowhere to live in a month. All of my friends hate each other and probably me. Everything is so fucked up and I can’t keep track of it and even if I wanted to, I don’t know if it’s worth trying to put back together. Every single significant relationship I’ve had in the last year and a half has ended completely fucked and I don’t know if that’s even worth it either, but it keeps happening anyway. Like, what are you and I doing here? Is this good? For either of us? Probably not. It’s just all a world of bad news and it looks bad enough already, but I’m just laying low here, waiting for the other shoe to drop. That good enough? That what you need to start coming up with a plan?”

She lays down next to him, a small smile playing on her lips. “I’ve got a plan. Fuck your friends, fuck your love life, fuck finding a place to live. You can stay here with me as long as you need. You’ll figure it out when you have to. If you have to.” She smoothes his hair back from his forehead, curling a finger around a strand affectionately. “For someone who spends a lot of time apparently fucking up his life, you also spend a lot of time worrying about it.”

“Don’t patronize me.” He lets his eyes slip shut. Kate’s other hand is trailing down his back, resting just before the waistband of his shorts. “Did you say apparently to make me feel better or because I don’t routinely fuck up my life?”

“Both,” Kate laughs. He can feel her breath on his face. He wants to turn around, wrap her arms around him, be the little spoon, but he doesn’t move. “I think you’re beating yourself up about Steve, which is dumb. It was just bad timing, for both of you, but I can tell you as a person who only has your best interest at heart, you were good to him and he’s not upset at you. So if you’re adding that to your list of fuck ups, don’t. I don’t think relationships are that cut and dry, you know? Do you blame Natasha for every bad thing that’s happened in your life since you two got together?” He starts to answer, but she cuts him off. “I know you don’t, no matter what you say. You’re not mad at her and you don’t hate her and you appreciate all the things she’s done for you before and since, so why are you assuming that Steve won’t feel the same way? Or that you won’t? Are you really going to sit here and think that Steve’s the one that got away? That you can never be friends again?”

“Okay, but you’re fourteen. You can’t know anything about any of this.” She laughs, sitting back against the pillows, taking both of her hands off of Clint. It takes everything in his power not to whine about it. “You’re right, I guess. But you’re supposed to be offering me a magical solution to my imaginary problems. That’s what real friends do.”

She lifts his face and kisses him square on the mouth. Not that he’s a great judge of kissers, but she’s _really_ good for being fourteen. He’s got four more years of practice and he still feels like she’s got her hands firmly on his wheel.

“I’m not your real friend,” she laughs and then he’s sitting up, kissing her back “And I’m fifteen.” Kate crawls in his lap, pressing herself as close to him as physically possible, her tank top riding up dangerously high. He tries to subtly pull it down, but Kate cranes her back away from him, digging her hips into him with enough pressure for him to forget about the tank top. And the line he’d probably drawn with chalk between them in the first place.

“You sure about this?” he asks, resting his head on her shoulder. He can feel her lips all over his body. “‘Cause there’s kind of no putting the genie back in the bottle, I just don’t want--”

“Clinton Francis Barton.” He lifts his head up. “Has anyone ever told you to shut up?”

“Plenty of times. But you should make me,” he breathes. She slams their mouths together again, her nails digging into the small of his back. He’d never talk again if this was the alternative.

**Bruce**

He sits cross-legged on Tony’s bed, watching him get ready for prom. “You’re worse than a girl,” Bruce laughs as Tony turns around in his full length mirror, checking all of his angles. His tuxedo probably costs more than the entirety of the prom and he’s probably the only kid who has paparazzi waiting outside his building to take pictures of his arrival.

“I wish you’d come with me.” Tony pouts, sticking his bottom lip out comically. “I’ve got a suit you can wear. Plenty of suits, actually. I can even buy you a suit. Please come with me.”

“What, so I can be named prom queen? Not hardly.” Tony sinks to his knees in front of the bed, but Bruce scoots back, laughing. “Besides, I’m not sure Thor wants to see either one of us. Especially at the same time, in the same place.”

“Prom is a place to forgive all sins, Bruce. He’ll see you in a suit and he won’t remember why he’s mad at you, promise.” Tony climbs up on the bed, grabbing at Bruce’s t-shirt, but Bruce pushes back on his chest, hard.

“You’re going to get creases in your tux.”

“Hmmm, I don’t care.” Tony leans forward, kissing Bruce gently at first, teasing. “Please, please, please come with me,” he breathes, his lips ghosting over Bruce’s. “I have this idea, you know. It’s a really good idea. I think you’d like to hear about this idea before you make any decisions.”

Bruce rolls his eyes. Tony presses him flat on his back, nearly knocking both of them off of the bed. He lifts the coat of his tux to straddle Bruce. Bruce puts his hands on Tony’s hips, mostly to keep them from grinding down. Or moving at all. This is how it’s been since he’s “forgiven” Tony. Everyone else has been avoiding Tony--both of them, actually--so his reliance on Bruce has become something much more than what it was. Despite the fact that Bruce has been repeatedly and heavily putting on the breaks.

Tony leans down, presses an open mouth kiss to his neck, and whispers in his ear, “I’ve always wanted to fuck in the car on the way to prom. Partition up, tell the driver to drive around the parking lot if we have to. My hand over your mouth while I suck you off wearing one of my best suits. You messing up my hair and my bow tie and putting creases all over my tuxedo while you pull me into your lap. Everyone will know what we did. We’ll take pictures and drink punch and dance and then, on the way home, we’ll fuck again.” He kisses Bruce, hard, but no tongue, still teasing. Always teasing. “How does that sound? Still worried about being prom queen?”

Bruce rolls them both over and then backs up off of Tony, shaking his head. “I’m not going with you. And I’m not having sex with you.”

Tony sighs, exasperated. His tux is a mess. If he goes to prom looking like that, they _will_ think he had sex in the car. Not Bruce’s problem. “Ever or tonight?”

Bruce takes his glasses off and rubs them on the hem of his shirt, embarrassed. “I don’t know. Definitely not tonight.”

Tony sighs again and rolls over on his stomach, pressing his side against Bruce’s thigh and resting his head in the circle of his arms. He’s warm, comforting. “Can we actually talk about this, though? The you and me thing? ‘Cause I mean, I know I owe you an apology for that, too, but…” He trails off, looking up at Bruce over his eyelashes. His eyes are puppy dog brown and hard to deny at the best of times, but Bruce feels a tightening in his stomach that has nothing to do with his eyes and everything to do with the way Tony has used his feelings for the past four years.

“I don’t want you to apologize unless it’s sincere. And I don’t want to talk about this because I don’t want to get angry. I’m tired of getting angry and it’s not helping anybody, so. Let’s not talk about it, how’s that?” He crosses his arms over his chest, but doesn’t move away from Tony. His stomach feels like a knot. He doesn’t want it to come unknotted.

“I am sorry. I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you. I’m sorry that I played with you like you didn’t mean anything to me. I’m sorry I was only there for you when it was convenient for me. I’m sorry that I wasn’t even there for you as a friend when you needed one the most. I’m sorry I fucked up my life and thought that I wouldn’t drag you down with me. I’m sorry I underestimated your feelings for me and what I’m most sorry for is that I underestimated mine for you. You’re the best thing I’ve got going in my life, Bruce, and you’ve stood by when it wasn’t easy. You’ve never made excuses for my behavior or your feelings for me and I can’t tell you what that means to me. I want to talk about this because I want to know if--if I messed this one up, too. I stepped all over Pepper’s feelings and she left. I stepped all over yours and you’re still here, so I’m going to take a guess you’re not bailing anytime soon. I just want to know what I’m working towards, I guess. I’m cool with just being friends, I promise I am, but the way you wailed on Loki--” There’s a small smile on his lips. Bruce feels the knot loosening-- “and the way you kiss me now, they aren’t the kind of things that friends usually do. But whatever you want, man.”

He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, chewing it over. Tony Stark, for all of his faults, is the only reason that Bruce believed he could go to a school like Cornell and succeed. Hell, he paid a decent chunk of his tuition without Bruce ever having to ask, making his father create a scholarship for him. He’s been the one constant in Bruce’s life, even as frustrating and disappointing as that constant has been at times. Tony is the only person who looks at Bruce and sees everything, every single piece of him, even the parts of him he’s built his life around hiding, and still wants him around, all of the time. Highs and lows. And that’s valuable. As supportive and helpful and reliable as the rest of his friends have been, when he’s low, they handle him with kid gloves, as if afraid they’ll lose their friend if they don’t walk on eggshells. Tony has never been that way. Tony has always been ready and willing to ride the roller coaster. Maybe because he was always making his life into one.

Bruce lays himself flat against Tony’s back and wraps his arms tight around Tony’s chest. “I don’t know what I want, all I know is that I want to be around you. Okay?” He rests his chin on Tony’s shoulder. Tony doesn’t say anything, so he wiggles his fingers under Tony’s armpits. Even through the tuxedo jacket, it’s enough to make him squirm and gasp out a laugh. “Okay?”

“Okay, okay, damn.” Tony rolls over and presses his face into Bruce’s chest. “You’re my best friend, Bruce Banner.”

Bruce presses a kiss to the top of Tony’s head. “You’re my best friend, Tony Stark.”

Tony ends up getting him into a suit. It’s a little tight, but it looks good. Tony doesn’t bother fixing the creases in his tux or how messed up his hair is. “I have a reputation of debauchery to maintain.”

**Steve**

Bucky hadn’t asked him to prom. Not even as a friend. Steve doesn’t even want to go, but Natasha shows up at his door with a boutonniere that matches her corsage and she ties his bow tie for him. “We’re not going for him. Or for Clint. We’re going for each other.” He tries to protest, but she ties his bow tie tight enough to temporarily choke him and he knows better than to argue.

“But they’re going to be there,” he points out when Natasha starts adjusting her hair in the mirror. She shoots a look at him that should by all rights stop his heart. He throws his hands up, nearly knocking his boutonniere out of place. “I’m just saying. It’s going to be awkward. For everyone involved.”

“Do you still think Clint is your friend?” She adjusts his boutonniere for him, rolling her eyes at him. In heels, she’s nearly a foot taller than him. They’ll be a comical sight walking in together. Steve nods, afraid she’ll tighten his bow tie again if he actually tries to speak. “Then it’s time to stop avoiding him. And you and Bucky are still figuring things out. Wouldn’t want to complicate that with prom. He’d be more disappointed if you weren’t there than he could ever say. It’s his senior year, Steve. Besides, do you really want to be his rebound guy?” She smiles at him. It might be more reassuring and soft if he didn’t have to tilt his head up to look at her.

“I’d be his anything guy.” He has the decency to laugh at himself.

Natasha cuffs him on the ear, hard. He yelps and rubs the spot, glaring angrily. “I swear to God, Rogers, I am not going to listen to you sell yourself short and mope all fucking night. We’re going to prom and we’re going to have a fucking awesome time.”

Her arm is heavy in his and he can barely keep up with her long strides. Clint and Kate are sitting out in the car waiting for them. Kate looks radiant, wearing a tight, light purple dress, her hair slick and long. She’s got a dark purple corsage that matches Clint’s bow tie. Exactly like the one Steve had colored for that Homecoming drawing. Clint smiles sheepishly at him, his arm across the passenger seat. “You both look awesome,” he says, no weight behind his voice. Kate nods in agreement. Steve adjusts his bow tie, feeling self-conscious, but Natasha bats his hands away, glaring at him.

Steve’s face is burning when they step out of the car. Clint and Kate look cute, matching, and are laughing easily and lightly at private jokes. He feels like he’s Natasha’s little brother, practically jogging to keep up with her. “This was a bad idea. How about you just go in there and have a good time and I’ll wait out here for you guys?” he asks, huffing, nearly out of breath from power walking his way to the door.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my date, Rogers, whether you like it or not.” She grabs his hand, tight, her nails digging into the webbing between his fingers and she drags him through the huge entranceway of the hotel. There are signs leading them into an equally huge ballroom where the live band has already started playing. Natasha doesn’t loosen her hold on his hand and Steve sucks in a breath, squeezing her hand right back. It feels like stepping into a fairy tale. There are even lights twinkling on the ceiling, glowing like a string of pearls. There are name plates at the tables, the seating chart arranged long before any of them knew about the Tony and Loki thing, so Steve sits next to Natasha, moving Bucky’s name plate as far away from his as humanly possible. Natasha doesn’t comment. She pulls his chair out for him before he can do it for her.

Tony and Bruce show up next, huge flashes going off of as Tony enters the room. It’s probably fair to say an entire page of the prom portion of the yearbook will be devoted to Tony’s carryings on. Bruce looks self-conscious, the suit very clearly too tight because it is very clearly Tony’s, but he sits down next to Steve and seems genuinely happy to be there. He hadn’t gone to his own senior prom last year, so it’s his first time, too. Tony looks amazing, as always. Better than everyone in the room. Relative sobriety has been treating him well, returning some color to his cheeks. Steve feels like ducking under the table to hide from the flashbulbs, but he knows once the band starts playing in earnest and everyone is dancing, he can disappear, easy.

Thor and Bucky come in together, sans dates. Bucky looks amazing and Steve’s stomach drops. He’s already got his suit jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, suspenders crossing the fine pleating of his shirt. His bow tie, ridiculously, is red, white, and blue. Thor has his hair tied back and looks like a Disney prince, clapping Bucky hard on the back when they sit down. It’s not as awkward as it has every right to be.

“He looks good,” Natasha whispers in his ear. Steve swallows, his mouth suddenly very dry.

“He didn’t ask me. He asked me to break up with Clint and he didn’t ask me to prom,” he growls, low in his throat. He crosses his arms over his chest and avoids looking at Bucky’s end of the table now that he’s taken everything in. He can feel the heat of Bucky’s eyes on his face, and he knows it’s showing, but he doesn’t look at him. Refuses to look at him.

The food is better than he expected, but he’s not that hungry. He ends up dumping most of what he doesn’t finish on Thor’s plate. And then it’s time for first dances. Natasha grabs his hand before he can escape and they end up awkwardly slow dancing, Steve not sure where to put his eyes since meeting hers would require a ninety degree held tilt and looking forward has him staring directly at the sweetheart neckline of her dress, so he stares at his feet instead. Before he can get off the dance floor, he feels a hand on the small of his back, broad enough to cover the whole expanse.

“Can I cut in?” Bucky whispers directly into his ear. He resists the urge to elbow him in the stomach. Natasha throws her hands up, curtsying at both of them, going back to sit at the table with Thor, kicking her heels off and helping him finish off everyone’s food.

“I don’t much feel like dancing,” Steve says, quietly. Barely loud enough to be heard over the music, but Bucky has his ears peeled.

“You love to dance, Steve.” Bucky tries to put his hands on Steve’s waist, but Steve steps away, pushing his hands down. “Come on, Steve. Don’t be this way.”

“What way? I’m not your date. Hell, I’m not sure I’m even your friend anymore. I came because Natasha dragged me bodily here and she told me it would be important to you. So I’m here. That’s the best I can do for you right now.” Bucky’s shirt is unbuttoned, revealing a nice triangle of his torso.

“Clint doesn’t seem to be having the same hang up,” Bucky points out. Kate and Clint look even better than they had at Homecoming, wrapped around each other like puzzle pieces. It doesn’t feel like as bad a kick to the gut as Bucky trying to point it out. Steve had no excuses for Clint. He had feelings for him, strong feelings, and he didn’t regret a single second they spent together, but he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that they’d both been a way for the other to pass the time. And he doesn’t just want to pass time anymore. Not with anyone.

“Yeah, well, Clint _asked_ Kate to prom. You seem to be missing a key point here, Buck.” He tries to shove passed him, off of the dance floor, but Bucky catches his wrist and spins him back around.

“Is that what this is really about? You need titles and all that shit? Weren’t you and Clint fucking around like five whole months before you were official? What’s the rush?” Steve jams his wrist down hard, twisting it against Bucky’s thumb until he lets go.

“No, you know what it’s about? I’ve been in love with you my whole damn life, Bucky Barnes, and the one time you find out I’m not sitting up, waiting for you, you convince me it’s not worth my time. You should ask Natasha to dance. The two of you deserve each other.” Bucky doesn’t try to stop him this time.

He ends up sitting on the hood of Clint’s car, staring blankly up at the sky. There are way too many clouds to see anything but the weak, waning half moon. He takes off his jacket and lays it across the windshield so he can lay back. He half expects Natasha to run out after him, but knowing Bucky, he’d actually taken Steve’s advice and they were waltzing their way back into high school bliss. Even though Bucky was graduating and headed to basic in less than three weeks.

He must have let his eyes slip shut for a little too long because he’s startled by a thunk on the hood. He opens his eyes a crack, expecting Clint or Bruce or maybe even Thor, but it’s Sam Wilson. Sam’s in a decent amount of Steve’s classes and has always been pressing him to enter his art into the national competitions, especially the portraits of his friends. They’ve had a handful of conversations, none of them really going anywhere, and he’s not exactly who Steve expects to be playing knight in shining armor on prom night. Sam looks just as uncomfortable to be standing there, his hand on the hood of Clint’s car, shifting from foot to foot.

“I saw you storm out,” he explains, quickly, as if afraid Steve will interrupt him. “Just thought you might need a friend right now.”

Steve pats the spot next to him on the hood, scattering enough dust in the air to make him cough. Sam hops up next to him, sitting so he can see Steve’s face, legs tucked up underneath him. The streetlight behind the car lights up Sam’s face brilliantly and Steve feels sort of like he’s never seen him before. In some ways, he never has.

“You’re on the prom committee, aren’t you?” Steve asks, still tasting dust in the back of his mouth.

“Yeah. Mostly just there for peacekeeping and to keep Jessica Drew from single-handedly making the whole thing something very obviously anti-couple.” He starts laughing and stops when he realizes that Steve isn’t. “Didn’t you come in with Natasha? Or are you guys just friends?”

It’s Steve’s turn to laugh while Sam furrows his brow. He has his palms flat on the hood, leaving perfect handprints through the dust. “Natasha and I are just friends. Definitely just friends. I think she’d kill me before she’d kiss me.”

Sam’s lips curl up at the edges, his eyes suddenly very bright. “Her loss.” Steve clears his throat, not sure how to respond to that. Sam doesn’t let him. “So what’s the story then? Bad breakup?”

Steve scrubs a hand down his face. He wishes Sam would look anywhere else. He can feel heat rising to his face. Maybe it’s dark enough that the blush isn’t showing. He doubts it. He's gotten better, he really has, but there's something about Sam. “You could say that. Jessica Drew have more in common than you might think. Like, um, an ex-boyfriend in common.”

Sam barks out a laugh, nearly toppling off of the hood. “I mean, that’s good to know, though.”

“What’s good to know?” Steve props himself up a little, narrowing his eyes at Sam. He doesn’t like not knowing where a conversation is going and Sam is being intentionally vague.

“That you have terrible taste. Means maybe I have a chance.” His smile is wide, pretty much half of his face, and Steve feels his heart start beating harder in his chest. But in the good way. The fluttery way, like his heart has wings trapped somewhere in his ribs.

He lays back down against the windshield, covering his face with his arms. “No, _you’re_ the one with terrible taste. Have you been flirting with me every single time you’ve talked to me? Am I really that dumb?”

“Well, honestly, I’d sort of given up hope and just assumed you were straight.” Sam crawls up the hood, closer to him. Steve lets his arms drop. Sam is licking his lips, not a bit of insecurity in his eyes. He likes Steve, really likes Steve, with no agenda, and it’s a kick to the gut. Steve holds his eyes as long as he can, feeling like he’s breathing through a straw. “It’s cool, though. I can tell you’ve still got some stuff going on. But I’ll wait. As long as I have to. You’re worth it to me.”

He smiles again and Steve sits all the way up, a moth to Sam’s undeniable flame. “Maybe I won’t make you wait too long.”

“That a promise?”

“Yeah,” Steve breathes, smiling despite himself. “That’s a promise.”

**Thor**

He can’t sleep. They’ve been out of school for nearly four days, but graduation is tomorrow. He still hasn’t told his father that he’s seriously considering a professional football contract. The Giants have been calling him nearly every day, trying to get official confirmation about whether he intends to go to college or not. He wouldn’t go in the first round, or probably even in the first ten rounds, but there was a definite shot he’d be invited to someone’s training camp and that he would make the team. A professional football team. Of course, he could get on any college football team in the country, even without a scholarship, but it didn’t have the same appeal. Especially as it's become increasingly obvious to him that his future didn’t need to be tied up in Loki’s.

He realized now that all he’d done was shield a sinking ship from view. His brother would have dragged him down, too, if he had spent any more time with his eyes willfully closed to what was happening. He’d always heard that love surmounted all obstacles, but maybe they hadn’t been talking about brothers. Loki never seemed to believe that Thor really loved him above all things else and more than anything else--the pain of Loki’s betrayal, Thor’s friends holding him personally responsible for Loki’s behavior, his father’s disappointment in both of them--that is what's weighing on him the most. Thinking of a future without Loki at his side seems pretty pointless.

He’s pretty drunk when he takes the elevator to Tony’s roof, trying to get some air and sober up before he takes the train home. They all have to be at the event center at 8 AM, something that everyone seems to have forgotten considering the various states of intoxication. Thor sits down on the couch, underneath the tarp tent, and sips a glass of water, listening to the sounds of New York underneath him. He knows that graduating high school isn’t the milestone it used to be, but he still feels like he’s standing on the edge of something, about to jump off with no safety net.

He hears the elevator. Tony steps out, stumbling a little bit. He grabs onto the side of the elevator shaft for stability and steps out on steadier legs, leering at Thor. “Figured I’d find you up here, party pooper.” Tony sits down next to him, heavily, nearly letting his drink slosh over the rim of his cup. It’s dark, some dangerous mixture of alcohols he definitely shouldn’t be drinking when he has to be up in six hours, but Tony has never been known for exercising great control. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Aren’t you scared about graduating?” Thor asks. He takes the cup out of Tony’s hand and puts it on the ground between their feet. He wants to have a serious conversation for once. He hasn’t had a real sit down with Tony since he came over to the house back in August and he feels like there’s a lot of ground to be covered between them. Tony has been one of his closest friends throughout high school and the biggest rift between them has been this--Tony’s insistence that what he and Loki did wasn’t a direct betrayal of his friendship with Thor. Asking him about it directly will go over about as well as it has in all of their previous conversations about Loki, but maybe this is a way to get Tony to talk.

“Me?” Tony laughs, almost dismissively, before meeting Thor’s eyes. His are wide and nearly blank. Blank enough to scare Thor. “I’m scared shitless.”

Thor runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. “You know how everyone keeps asking us about our plans? Like we’re supposed to know already. At eighteen. I haven’t even planned for the day after tomorrow, how am I supposed to tell someone about the next four years of my life? How am I expected to make decisions about my future when I’m not even sure if I want one?” Rhetorical questions, but Tony nods understandingly. “What about you? What are you doing after tomorrow?”

“Pretty much the same thing as now, I imagine. It shouldn’t take me long to get a master’s. Maybe I’ll go get a couple of PHDs, who knows. Maybe try to get a handle on the drinking thing, but probably not. At some point, I’m set to take over Stark Industries, but.” Tony shrugs. “Don’t you think your dad wants you to take over, too? Or are we not talking about daddy issues tonight?”

“I’m not. I don’t think I’m cut out for it. The decisions he’s had to make. The sacrifices.” Thor stares down at his hands. Daddy issues, indeed.

“You’re talking about Loki? Right? Look, that wasn’t your fault--” Thor throws a hand up, shaking his head. Tony, ridiculously, grabs his hand and presses it down on the couch between them, looking like an angry five year old. “No, fucking listen to me. You’re not your brother’s keeper, whatever your father may have told you. And you’re not destined to follow in your father's footsteps, either. You’ve already proven you’re a better man, a more compassionate man, and you can’t keep beating yourself up about Loki. I helped him make those bad decisions, Thor. I kept secrets from you and everyone else. Not to protect him or you or anyone’s feelings, but to protect myself. And that’s a shitty thing to do. And you never blamed me or Loki for it. You’ve always blamed yourself.”

“He’s my brother.” Thor stands up, kicking over Tony’s drink. Neither one of them move to pick it up.

“Yeah, and I’m your friend, and I’m telling you it’s not your fault. If that’s what got you freaking out about tomorrow, you’re being fucking stupid.” Tony stands up, too, stepping all over the alcohol. He puts his hands on Thor’s shoulders, shaking him. “You’re being stupid. What are you afraid of?”

Thor doesn’t answer him. He wraps his arms around Tony’s shoulders. Tony makes a soft sound somewhere between a groan and a huff of breath, but then his arms are tight around Thor’s chest. He buries his face in Thor’s shoulder and they stay like that for what feels like hours. “I’m afraid of losing what I’ve worked so hard for. Here,” Thor finally answers him, letting him get a little breathing room.

Tony keeps a hand on Thor’s shoulder, both as a comfort and a way to keep himself from falling down drunk. He’s always been good upstairs drunk, as snappy with a comeback as ever, but his coordination is always the first thing to go. “You’re not going to lose anything. We’ll all be here when you need us. Didn’t this whole thing with your brother prove that? We may not always agree, or even like each other very much, but we’re family, Thor.”

“Family,” he repeats, laughing a little.

Tony punches him weakly on the chest. “Yeah, big boy. Family. Enough sentiment. Come back downstairs with me and let’s get so drunk everyone will know we’re hungover when cross the stage. Deal?”

Thor has to support most of Tony’s weight back to the elevator. Family. Thor likes the sound of that.

**Tony**

He loses his diploma almost as quickly as he’s given it. He can see Bruce in the crowd and he’s practically hopping, waiting until the ceremony is over. Natasha and Steve are there, too. Natasha is beaming and Steve doesn’t look half as morose as he has the past few weeks, maybe something to do with the fact that he's always hanging out with Sam Wilson. Clint is pointedly nowhere near Kate, but the two of them very clearly came in together, but Tony’s not touching that one with a ten foot pole. The cap is starting to get itchy and he’s ready to toss it and never think about high school for the rest of his life. He’s already been offered a full time professorship in the engineering department at MIT, if he’s interested in that sort of responsibility, and his father is offering to restructure some departments, make him a partner in all but name, but Tony feels like he can probably stave that off for a couple of days, enjoy his adolescence and all the debauchery that entails.

And then before he knows it, it’s over. There’s confetti everywhere, some catching in his mouth as he tosses his cap. He doesn’t bother waiting for it to come back down. Bruce is about three rows up in the stands. Tony pulls the gown up and over his head, tossing it on the steps. He can hear cameras clicking already. That’ll be the caption on page six. _Stark, 18, throws off his graduation gown while greeting friends watching the ceremony_. Friends. They never bothered to learn any of his friend's name.

“I did it,” he tells Bruce, shouting over the din of his fellow graduates bleeding into the crowd. Parents and grandparents hugging their kids, the flash of cellphone cameras everywhere, kids giving each other piggyback rides across the auditorium.

“You did it.” Bruce grabs him around the middle, lifting him in the air. “You should come teach at Cornell instead of MIT. Or get me a job with your dad, too.”

“Whatever you want.” He expects Bruce to put him down, but he doesn’t. That’ll be one for page six.

He feels Clint’s thump on the back before he sees him. His smile is wide, but not quite reaching his eyes. “Congratulations, Stark.”

“And you, too. I’ve heard you’ve got yourself a live in freshman. Oh, I guess she’s a sophomore now, my bad.” Clint looks abashed, but for once, he doesn’t argue, shrugging it off. “Just do me a favor and don’t fail the next two years, too.” Clint punches him weakly in the small of his back. Bruce finally lets him go, pointedly letting him slide down his entire body. Clint raises his eyebrows at them, but doesn’t say anything.

Steve and Natasha are talking to Bucky. Natasha is tucking her hair behind her ears, as sure a sign as any that there’s a very real possibility that the two of them are getting back together. Steve, to his credit, doesn’t seem perturbed by the development. Bucky’s mom is snapping tons of pictures of the three of them. It does tug at Tony’s heart strings a little to think that Bucky could be overseas in a few months. That all he’ll get are letters and the occasional Skype call. He’s surprised Steve doesn’t look worse, but maybe he’s toughened up in the last year.

Bruce slips his arm around Tony’s waist, loose. “What are you thinking about?”

“Honestly?” Bruce nods, pulling Tony in closer to his body. “I didn’t think any of us would make it here, you know? That we’d all stay together.”

They end up in the backseat of Clint’s car, the three of them, passing a joint between them. Clint has procured someone’s graduation cap and has it on sideways, the tassel hanging in his face. Bruce is already loose and sinking further and further into the seat and into Tony's side, his eyes sleepy and red rimmed. Tony feels lighter, but otherwise fine. Happy to swallow up all the smoke in the car and feel Bruce’s warm weight against him. “We’re so doing this again next year for you and Steve, Barton. Fuck, I’ll bring a ten foot bong.” Clint coughs out a laugh, waving the smoke out of his face. Bruce presses his face into deeper Tony’s side.

“So what’s going on with you two, then?” Clint asks, raising an eyebrow, using the joint to indicate the fact that Bruce has practically melded into Tony at this point.

Bruce waves off the next hit and Tony takes one for the both of them, holding the smoke in his lungs for so long, his chest starts to hurt. “You want to answer that one or should I?” Bruce waves, vaguely again, murmuring as he buries his face further in Tony’s side. “He’s never been good at being stoned,” Tony sighs.

Clint flicks a bit of ash that fell on his leg at the both of them. “Quit dodging the question, Stark. If you’re going to be on me about Kate the whole rest of my life, you’ve got some explaining to do yourself.”

“We’re taking it… slow,” Tony says, looking at Bruce for confirmation. He’s not getting any. He smoothes a hand over Bruce’s curls, laughing a little despite himself. “Gotta make damn sure it’s going to stick, you know? So we are friends with some extra sexual tension until such a time as we can both be adult about it all and not derail our years of mutual feelings towards each other with sex.”

“That’s--surprisingly well thought out.” Clint takes the joint from him and takes a deep pull. “You learn that in high school?” Tony laughs, shaking his head. “In any case, for what it’s worth, I’m pretty damn sure it’s going to stick.” He jams his thigh up against Bruce’s. Bruce lifts his head, hair sticking up at odd angles, eyes bleary and barely open. “At this point, you’re not getting rid of any of us, Stark.”

“Counting on it.”

**Author's Note:**

> [here](http://finnwittrocky.tumblr.com/post/104809886563/fic-make-damn-sure) is a little thing I wrote on my tumblr. there is some background info about the characters not explicitly said in the fic and also just. me, complaining about my own writing, so. fair warning.


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